JUDY WOODRUFF: Renowned jazz
trumpeter Terence Blanchard
has been nominated for the best
original score Academy
Award for his work on the
film "BlacKkKlansman."
Tonight, Jeffrey Brown
continues our feature on Oscar
nominees as part of Canvas.
That's our new focus
on arts and culture.
JEFFREY BROWN: In the film
"BlacKkKlansman," we meet police
officers, members of the KKK,
various characters.
And then there's a different
kind of character, the score,
composed by Terence Blanchard.
TERENCE BLANCHARD, Composer:
The role of the music is to --
like, first of all, to bring
some of those intangible things
to the fore, if there are
things that don't -- we can't
put into words, there's emotions
we can't really describe,
but the music is there to
kind of help us experience that.
JEFFREY BROWN: "BlacKkKlansman,"
directed by Spike Lee, tells
the story of Ron Stallworth,
the first black officer with the
Colorado Springs police force.
JOHN DAVID WASHINGTON, Actor:
Who am I speaking with?
TOPHER GRACE, Actor:
This is David Duke.
JEFFREY BROWN: Played by John
David Washington, he infiltrates
a KKK chapter by impersonating
a white man over the phone.
JOHN DAVID WASHINGTON: My mouth
to God's ears, I really hate
those black rats, and anyone
else really that doesn't
have pure white Aryan blood
running through their veins.
JEFFREY BROWN: His partner, a
Jewish officer played by Adam
Driver, goes undercover to
gather evidence
against the Klan.
It's set in the 1970s,
but Lee makes direct
connections to today.
And it's based on a true story,
which amazed Terence Blanchard
when he first joined the
project.
TERENCE BLANCHARD: When Spike
first told me, the first think
I thought of was, man, you
need to put the bottle down.
(LAUGHTER)
JEFFREY BROWN: Really?
TERENCE BLANCHARD: Yes.
I mean...
JEFFREY BROWN: Like, where is
this -- you're making this up.
TERENCE BLANCHARD: Yes, a
black man infiltrated the
Klan in Colorado Springs?
Really?
That grabbed me.
JEFFREY BROWN: Blanchard
has long been known as
a top jazz musician,
with six Grammy awards.
He grew up in New Orleans, began
playing the piano and Trumpet
as a youngster, joined the
Lionel Hampton orchestra while
still in college, and later
Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.
He then went solo, eventually
heading the group E-Collective.
But he's also now being
honored for his decades-long
work in films, composing
more than 40 scores.
He first performed on
Spike Lee's films "Do
the Right Thing" and "Mo'
Better Blues" -- that's
Blanchard you hear when Denzel
Washington plays the trumpet
-- and has scored almost
every Lee film since "Jungle
Fever," including "Malcolm X."
What was the hardest thing
about learning to write music
for a film, as opposed to your
other life?
TERENCE BLANCHARD:
The hardest thing was
putting your ego aside.
JEFFREY BROWN: Putting
your ego aside?
TERENCE BLANCHARD: Yes, because
I come from a world where
all the music was about me,
it was about what
I wanted to say.
JEFFREY BROWN: Because you're
not front and center now.
TERENCE BLANCHARD:
No, it's not about me.
It's really about the story,
and it's really about helping
the director tell a story in
the way he sees fit.
JEFFREY BROWN: He typically
begins his work with a first
cut of the film, after a great
deal of work by actors, director
Lee, and another longtime
collaborator, editor Barry
Alexander Brown.
TERENCE BLANCHARD: When they
hand it to me, it's like a lot
of things are done, and I'm
one of the last
pieces of the puzzle.
So when you get it, so,
then you go, oh, my God,
everybody's done a great job.
I can't be the guy
to drop the ball.
So it inspires me to work hard.
JEFFREY BROWN: You can make
it better, or you could
mess it up, I suppose.
TERENCE BLANCHARD:
Or really mess it up.
(LAUGHTER)
JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.
TERENCE BLANCHARD:
Look for new work.
JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.
TERENCE BLANCHARD: Well, the
thing is, the first thing I
have to do is let the film tell
me what it needs,
because, even though it's
a great story, there's
lighting, there's editing,
there's acting.
And when I get a cut, with
Spike, you never know, because
you can read a scene one way,
and then he will shoot it
another way, with emphasis
on other things in the scene.
So, when I watch it, the
pace of it, the look of it,
it will all speak to me.
It will say, oh, OK, well,
it slows down a little bit
here, maybe we need to pick up
the pace here.
Oh, you know what?
Maybe that's a very powerful
moment, and maybe we need to
back away from that and let the
actor have that moment.
There are a lot of little
things like that, that start to
play a role in how the overall
thing takes shape.
The other part of it, too,
because of Spike's unique love
for melody, I had to learn how
to structure those melodies and
orchestrate them onto dialogue
in a way that still could
be heard, but not get in
the way of the dialogue.
JEFFREY BROWN: These are things
that I'm probably not -- I'm not
aware of as they're happening,
right?
TERENCE BLANCHARD:
You shouldn't be.
JEFFREY BROWN: I shouldn't be.
(LAUGHTER)
TERENCE BLANCHARD:
Yes, you shouldn't be.
JEFFREY BROWN: In
"BlacKkKlansman," Blanchard
worked with an orchestra,
as well as his own
small ensemble, and for
the first time featured
the electric guitar.
TERENCE BLANCHARD: Spike always
does a great job at giving
you the taste of the period
with the source music, you know,
all of the songs that's there.
I wanted the score to be
universal, first of all, but
still have elements of the '70s,
and colors of the '70s, and
that electric guitar was one
of the ones that we used a
great deal.
JEFFREY BROWN: and the
Oscar nomination, it's
a first for you, right?
TERENCE BLANCHARD: Oh, yes, yes.
JEFFREY BROWN: A lot of
attention because it's
the first for Spike
Lee, after so long.
TERENCE BLANCHARD: Yes.
Yes.
JEFFREY BROWN: Does it
feel like just a long time
coming for both of you?
TERENCE BLANCHARD: I have been
asked that question a lot.
And it's hard to answer it,
because I never expected it.
You know what I mean?
I have been telling people
it's kind of hard to
miss what you never had.
It's great.
It's awesome.
It's been an
overwhelming experience.
It's been a humbling experience.
I look at this movie as being
like the culmination of what we
have been doing for the last 30
years.
JEFFREY BROWN: Terence
Blanchard's next big project?
He's working on an
opera, his second.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm
Jeffrey Brown in New York.