Terence Blanchard on celebrating the Centennials of John Coltrane and Miles Davis with Ravi Coltrane

You’ve known Ravi Coltrane, the son of John Coltrane, since he was a child. You’ve been a mentor to him, how would you describe your relationship with Ravi?

Well, I don’t know about mentorship because I look at him as a colleague and my relationship with him has been beautiful over the years. He’s always inspired me by the direction that he takes, the bravery he takes to play the same instrument as his father but not to be totally influenced by that. He is his own man and watching him grow as an artist has been immensely rewarding in a lot of ways because he is a very inspirational figure in my life. So, I’ve always appreciated him not only as a musicians, but as a person because he’s a good dude.

How did the notion of paying tribute to these jazz greats first come up?

It was one of those things when you start talking about Centennials and I’m not really into doing these types of things a lot but these two guys were pivotal so I felt like I needed to do something. I needed to say thank you to them in some form or fashion. So, we decided to do these shows and it’s been really great because one of the first things that I knew in doing these shows that we were not going to do the arrangements that they recorded. Those things are etched in stone, those are their ideas and their beliefs and we need to respect that and show them how they influenced us to think on our own.

When we consider the body of work that these jazz giants left us, how do you navigate that path that leads to an effective homage to these artists?

It’s a tough one for sure because what they did was so powerful musically sometimes it’s hard to think outside of the realm of those recordings. But it’s that notion in itself that really fuels me because Miles and Trane, those guys were always like, ‘Well, what do you have to say?’ I remember being on tour with Herbie and we started to play one of the old versions of his tunes and he got into it but then he stopped and said, ‘Man, that feels so old to me.’ That lit something inside of me, these guys are moving on because that was then and we have to force ourselves to step outside of that…trust me, it’s a nice, warm fuzzy blanket that you can sit by the fire with all of those recordings because they’re so amazing. But as artists and as people who really respect their craft for what they did, we really have to take the time to sit down and think about how we feel about these tunes and how do we want to say what we need to say using them as a vehicle.

Terence Blanchard and Ravi Coltrane perform on October 9 at FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in St. Catharines, presented by Bravo Niagara. Tickets are available here.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.