Terence Blanchard began his film- music career playing trumpet parts in early Spike Lee films, standing in on horn for Denzel Washington in "Mo' Better Blues."

In the two decades since, Blanchard has served as Lee's go-to composer, leading orchestras in scores so rich and memorable they become characters in the movies.

When Lee goes subtler, Blanchard goes bolder, and vice versa. For the 2006 heist film "Inside Man" – as mainstream a picture as Lee ever made – Blanchard wrote a controlled explosion of a score. When Lee took a big, outraged stand in his HBO Hurricane Katrina documentary "When the Levees Broke," New Orleans native Blanchard responded with poignancy.

Here's a look at some of Blanchard's composing work:

• "Malcolm X" (1992): Lee's take on the civil rights leader runs an epic 3 1/2 hours and has "big" and "important" written all over it. Yet Blanchard's score is understated. The music's shining moment occurs during a sequence set in Malcolm's (Washington) and wife Betty's (Angela Bassett), living room, with Blanchard's string arrangement imparting both the comfort of home and Malcolm's growing disillusionment with Nation of Islam mentor Elijah Muhammad.

• "25th Hour" (2002): Lee's exploration of the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, via the microcosm of a New York City drug dealer's (Ed Norton) last free night before prison, results in one of his quieter, more contemplative films. Blanchard's music, by contrast, is forceful and gorgeous, an atmospheric rush of strings and chants that speaks to a time of great confusion and to the resiliency of a city and nation.

• "Inside Man" (2006): Blanchard brings out the brass and the big drums for Lee's heist film starring Washington, Clive Owen and Jodie Foster. Blanchard's soaring, artful and sometimes slightly off-kilter score punctuates the high-stakes criminal maneuvers inside a Manhattan bank and leaves the viewer on edge.

• "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts": (2006) Blanchard's score for Lee's scorching, sad examination of government ineptitude and the human toll of Katrina is his most compelling so far. As the New Orleans residents on whom Lee focuses cry out for immediate relief, Blanchard's plaintive trumpet, backed by haunting piano, underscores the bad times still to come. Blanchard expanded on his "Levees" score with the Grammy-winning album "A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina)."

• "Talk to Me" (2007), "Cadillac Records" (2008): Blanchard composes for filmmakers beside Lee, including Kasi Lemmons, who recruited Blanchard to score her breakout 1997 film "Eve's Bayou" and 2007 movie "Talk to Me," which starred Don Cheadle as Petey Greene, a convict who became a radio star and community activist in the late 1960s. Blanchard's music for "Talk to Me" and the Darnell Martin-directed "Cadillac Records," which tells the story of 1950s and '60s R&B label Chess Records, complements the widely known R&B and pop songs on the soundtracks – and shows the versatile jazz man knows his way around blues riffs and funk rhythms.

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