Terence Blanchard
Flow

He has composed the soundtracks for more than a dozen Spike Lee films: starting in 1991 with "Jungle Fever" up to the recent "Inside Man".

And even though in the meantime he has earned a place in the crowded universe of jazz, it is those music compositions I associate his name with.
Flow, released last year, is indeed the first album of the American trumpeter that I have had a chance to listen to.
His second album (after "Bounce" in 2003) for Blue Note. According to what I read, Blanchard's arrival at the historic label seems to have marked a turning point in his career. This is also highlighted by some changes in the band that has accompanied him for some time: the bass shifts from the hands of Eric Harland to Derrick Hodge, and Lionel Loueke's guitar finds its place, as he also writes some of the tracks. The lineup is completed by Brice Winston on the sax, tenor and soprano, Kendrick Scott on drums, and Aaron Parks on piano.

What becomes evident from the start is the adherence of the title to the music we are listening to.
Because it is indeed a flow: stretching now on the side more reminiscent of hard bop roots, now in the suggestion of African rhythms and colors, without denying itself the opportunities of an intelligent use of electronic parts programming or the freedom of improvisation spaces.
Blanchard's trumpet shows it "finds" its sound in each of the contexts, contributing to the changing features of the flow.
These features find further cohesion, despite the wide array displayed, thanks to Herbie Hancock's hand as the producer.

"Flow", the title track, divided into three parts, the first placed at the beginning (the others one in the middle and the third almost at the end) starts with a minimal beat of the woodwinds, over which the soft bass line builds the loop on which Blanchard's clear sound releases phrases occasionally wrapped in light digital carpets.
The texture tends to layer; the guitar enters the scene, the drums come to the forefront, warming the environment in which the trumpet reinforces and speeds up its blow. But the clarity of the sound remains absolute until the piece fades out.
But it is in the intro of "Wadagbe" that we encounter one of the souls of the album.
It is Africa that is sketched by the guitar strokes (almost simulating a balafon), suggested by field recordings and liquid digital substance. But it is especially the one sung by Loueke's own voice, over this fluid sound that also fades to open the path inside the over 10 minutes of the true Wadagbe (written by Louoke)
Ten minutes furrowed by spaces of rarefaction that then condense into agitated accelerations, dynamic and imaginative interplay, and tribal hints, shifts of "setting", and light "singable" passages, up to a final again magmatic, swallowed by the fading of the tail.

We find again the evocative softness of the trumpet sound in the theme suggested at the beginning of the following track: in "Benny's Tune" the keys pass under the fingers of Herbie Hancock, and the dialogue between him and Blanchard, supported by a "delicate" rhythm section, with the rare but refined guitar inserts, delivers a splendid ballad to us.
Hancock will return to the piano in another episode, "The Source", written by drummer Kendrick Scott, dispensing pleasure in the form of clusters of notes in the heart of those eight minutes, after the "environmental" and nocturnal parenthesis of "Flow, Part.2" crossed by digital trails.
But Aaron Parks, the main pianist, proves himself worthy of note on more than one occasion, also signing "Harvesting Dance", the long, articulated track placed at the end of the album, which sees a sprawling setting echoing Hispanic visions flare up in electrifying nuances in Loueke's guitar.

A rich album, in the variety of solutions and suggestions, and fresh, modern, very enjoyable but not at all predictable. And a sound, in the leader's trumpet, capable of traversing it with eclectic class, suggesting various possible developments that will be interesting to follow.