Sep 3, 2025 12:02 PM
Keeping the Flame at Van Gelder Studio
On the last Sunday of 2024, in the control room of Van Gelder Studio, Don and Maureen Sickler, co-owners since Rudy Van…
Terence Blanchard—who won a Grammy in the category Best Instrumental Composition for “Blut Und Boden (Blood And Soil),” a work featured in Spike Lee’s 2018 movie BlacKkKlansman—composed the score for the filmmaker’s latest effort, Da 5 Bloods.
(Photo: Henry Abenejo)In the pantheon of collaborative triumphs, musical partnerships like Billie Holiday and Lester Young or Miles Davis and Teo Macero are easy to reference. At some point, though, jazz historians are going to need to survey the work that trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard has done with filmmaker Spike Lee.
The director’s latest endeavor—a Netflix feature called Da 5 Bloods—recounts the story of a cohort of Black war veterans who travel back to Vietnam in an attempt to recover a fallen friend and find buried gold. In part, it’s a genre picture, a combination of war movie and buddy flick, with the onetime soldiers trekking into the jungle and dealing with the past.
For Blanchard, who spoke to DownBeat recently from his home in New Orleans, the past and America’s endlessly problematic origin story seem to have been on his mind. His own previous leader dates have explored gun violence and police brutality, and his latest film score (set alongside a bevy of Marvin Gaye tunes) isn’t wholly divorced from those ideas, elevating Lee’s feature in the process.
During a wide-ranging conversation, Blanchard discussed his working relationship with Lee, other projects that are continuing despite the pandemic and President Donald Trump’s prospects in the November elections.
“If people of color come out to vote in this country,” Blanchard said, “he’s sunk.”
Don and Maureen Sickler serve as the keepers of engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s flame at Van Gelder Studio, perhaps the most famous recording studio in jazz history.
Sep 3, 2025 12:02 PM
On the last Sunday of 2024, in the control room of Van Gelder Studio, Don and Maureen Sickler, co-owners since Rudy Van…
Trio aRT with its avalanche of instrumentation: from left, Pheeroan akLaff, Scott Robinson and Julian Thayer.
Sep 3, 2025 12:03 PM
Trio aRT, a working unit since 1988, shockingly released its very first studio recording this summer. Recorded in…
“Think of all the creative people I’m going to meet and a whole other way of thinking about music and a challenge of singing completely different material than I would have sung otherwise to my highest level in dedication to the moment,” Elling says about his Broadway run.
Sep 9, 2025 1:18 PM
Kurt Elling was back at home in Chicago, grabbing some family time in a late-June window between gigs. Sporting a smile…
Pat Metheny will perform with his Side-Eye III ensemble at Big Ears 2026 in Knoxville, Tennessee, next March.
Sep 9, 2025 12:19 PM
Big Ears has announced the lineup for its 2026 festival, which will take place March 26–29 and include 250…
Mark Masters, right, with Billy Harper.
Sep 3, 2025 12:00 PM
The Rising Star Category of this publication’s annual Critics Poll was once called Talent Deserving Wider Recognition…
