Terence Blanchard Records Live at the Bop Stop

For his latest disc, Caravan, trumpeter wanted to continue to explore a theme he had dealt with  on his 2015 studio session Breathless: the growing tension between members of the African-American community and police.  Blanchard decided to make Caravan a live recording and selected four cities, including Cleveland,  that had seen high profile confrontations between the two groups.   

Terence brought his group 鈥淓-Collective鈥� to the to perform and record on January 4 and 5.

Blanchard鈥檚 specific reason for choosing Cleveland was the 2014 death of Tamir Rice who was shot by police.  Blanchard  described himself as 鈥渋ncredibly frustrated鈥� by the Rice incident.   

Blanchard said 鈥淚鈥檓 not a cop, but I know that if you get a man with a gun call you don鈥檛 drive up on the suspect.鈥�

Blanchard went on to say, 鈥渢here are a lot of great cops out there.  I know a lot of them. I鈥檝e gone to church with a lot of them, but it鈥檚 time for them to speak up.鈥�

You can hear more of Blanchard's conversation with Dan Polletta by listening on Friday at 1:33 p.m. to Hear and Now featuring The Sound of Applause.  Watch part of his Bop Stop performance on Friday at 8:30 p.m. on Applause on WVIZ-PBS.