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Home , Alfred Lion, Blue Note Records, Bobby Hutcherson, Bruce Lundvall, Cyrus Chestnut, Dianne Reeves

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SAT 8 PM NOV 2 Cullen Theater, TH 80 BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION Wortham Theater Center THE STATE OF 2019

FEATURING Kandace Springs, voice, keys , James Francies, piano James Carter Organ Trio Connor Parks, drums Gerard Gibbs, organ Max Gerl, bass James Francies Chris Gaskell, bass Alex White, drums Jeremy Dutton, drums

7:15 pm Pre-concert conversation with James Carter, James Francies and jazz educator Robert Morgan

Selections to be announced from the stage Tonight’s concert will include one 20-minute intermission. 29

Ask anyone with a minimal tour. Carter is performing with the transition into the fusion era, familiarity of history what the year his organ trio featuring Gerard releasing commercially successful 1939 is most often remembered for Gibbs on Hammond B-3 and albums by and and they will probably tell you that Alexander White on drums. The , among others. But it is the year World War II broke out trio’s debut album on the label, Live when EMI bought in Europe, which qualifies it as one from Newport Jazz, was released in 1979, the label went dark until of the worst years in human history. in August. Joining Carter on the 1985, when it was reborn under But as saxophonist and multi-reeds tour are two younger artists signed the auspices of EMI Manhattan player James Carter points out, 1939 to Blue Note, vocalist-keyboardist Records. In the ensuing decades, was an auspicious year for jazz. It Kandace Springs and pianist- CEO oversaw both was the year that keyboardist James Francies. an ambitious CD reissue series and recorded Body and Soul, which as In the early years, signed notable new artists such as Carter explains laid the blueprint recorded the sort of traditional jazz , , John for the modern jazz approach to and boogie-woogie piano he had Scofield, and Norah the tenor saxophone. Carter also heard as a young man in . The Jones, whose 2002 debut album, notes that 1939 was the year Charlie label’s first hit was ’s , sold more Parker first moved to New York and recording of Summertime, still than 10 million copies to become discovered a new alto saxophone considered one of the definitive jazz by far the label’s biggest commercial sound and musical vocabulary that performances of any era. With the success. After EMI was acquired became known as . And, most encouragement of saxophonist Ike by the in importantly for our purposes here, Quebec, Blue Note began recording 2012, noted producer and bassist 1939 was the year that a Jewish modern jazz artists in the years after took over as president of refugee from Nazi named WWII. made Blue Note. Under Was’ stewardship, Alfred Lion, with financial backing his debut on the label in 1947, as Blue Note has maintained a balance from an American communist writer did . , who between discovering and promoting a new generation of cutting-edge named Max Margulis, founded Blue remained with Blue Note for a BLUE NOTE RECORDS Note Records in . quarter of a century, showed up in jazz artists such as Francies and the early 1950s. vibraphonist Joel Ross, and putting “That was thirty years before I out crossover-oriented projects such was born,” Carter says “There are became Blue Note’s chief engineer in 1953, and he opened his own as Kandace Springs’ Indigo and so many Blue Note recordings— ’s album , Horace Silver… Dr. Lonnie Smith, studio in 1959. In 1956, became the label’s first artist which in 2012 won a Grammy for The Turning Point, he recorded that best R&B recording. The label has the day before I was born… the to record a full-length 12-inch LP. By the 1960s, the label was also brought back a few legendary later stuff… anything survivors from its Sixties Golden with Jimmy Smith and Stanley cranking out jazz masterpieces— mostly centered on but Age including and Turrentine… This is cook-out Dr. Lonnie Smith, while keeping its music. It’s the soundtrack of my life. also veering into the avant-garde— almost on a weekly basis, utilizing a vast archive available both in print Anything that came out of Rudy and available digitally. Van Gelder’s studio was magic, from stable of the best young black jazz Blue Trane on down.” artists of their generation playing Don Was is responsible for signing on each other’s sessions. On June James Carter to Blue Note. Both Carter also refers to the iconic 14, 1965, Van Gelder engineered Was and Carter are from , photos of the artists, many taken two classic albums on the same and in 2015 Was invited Carter to at Van Gelder’s New Jersey studio day—Wayne Shorter’s Et Cetera and take part in Detroit Jazz City, a Blue by Lion’s childhood friend Francis ’s Components, Note benefit compilation album Wolff and incorporated into the both featuring on of new and old tracks. Needless to cover art by graphic designer Reid piano and on drums. mention, Carter tore it up, as he Miles, as contributing to “that Blue usually does. “He does seem like a Note vibe.” Lion sold Blue Note to in 1965 and retired a natural for the label,” says Was, “and Now Carter is making his own couple years later. Liberty was in this trio is a timeless Blue Note contribution to the Blue Note turn acquired by United Artists sound.” Both Gerard Gibbs, who vibe by headlining Blue Note has played with Carter since 2001, th in 1969. Under the direction of Records’ 80 Birthday Celebration George Butler, Blue Note made and Alexander White, who joined in 2015, still live in Detroit. Carter 30 PROGRAM

says he goes back and forth between his saxophone, soprano saxophone and f teacher said, it’s just one continuum,” he hometown and New York. mezzo saxophone. told me. Live From Newport Jazz consists of Carter calls the approach he takes In addition to being conversant in compositions by the Belgian-born to Reinhardt’s music with his organ virtually any era of jazz, ancient to the gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt, trio “Django Unchained,” meaning, future, Carter also plays almost every who with violinist Stephane Grappelli he says, “unchained from the acoustic wind instrument, from soprano sax co-led the Hot Club of France Quintet mellowness.” In addition to the to baritone sax, and from flute to bass in Paris in the 1930s. Carter, who obvious soul-jazz organ trio vibe, . What’s more he plays each previously paid homage to Reinhardt he throws in funk grooves, quotes of them differently and yet sounds on the 2000 album Chasin’ the Gypsy, from R&B tunes and squawking, exactly like himself on all of them. traces his interest to a public radio free-jazz sax solos. He describes Live Asked which instrument he started program he used to listen to as a from Newport Jazz as his attempt on, he gives a surprising answer: “The teenager called Jazz Yesterday. The “to give Gypsy jazz a ‘hood pass’.” baroque recorder. It was an elementary program consisted mostly of big Carter credits his musical eclecticism school music rental program. They gave band music, but one night he heard to his teacher, Donald Washington, kids a recorder, which cost $2.50 at something different; no horns, no who led a youth jazz ensemble called the time. That way they could see who drums, just guitars and , playing Bird-Trane-Sco-Now. Washington lost interest and who was musically Fats Waller’s Ain’t Misbehavin’. “It was both taught him about the history of inclined. I went straight from baroque charming yet hot at the same time,” jazz and took him to see avant-garde recorder to the saxophone.” he says. Carter turned on his cassette artists such as the Art Ensemble of At one point early in his education, recorder but, as was common back in Chicago and the World Saxophone Carter was about to quit playing music the day, the tape ran out before the Quartet. “He said, ‘Always keep your because he was so bored with the announcer came on to tell him who he ears and your eyes open for different school curriculum. “All they wanted was listening to. things to interpret to bring out to teach us was ‘Hot Cross Buns’ and Fifteen years later, Carter was on tour your individuality,” Carter told an ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’,” he mutters. in The Netherlands. “We stopped at interviewer for Bomb magazine in That’s when his older brother came to a gas station,” he recalls. “There was a 1995. Seeing the World Saxophone the rescue. Carter recalls the first time carousel of tapes and CDs you could Quartet—which at the time consisted he heard . “I was coming buy. One CD kept yelling out to me; of David Murray on tenor, Julius from with Duke Swinging with Django. I took it home Hemphill and on altos Ellington, and also Grover Washington, and played it and I immediately went, and Hamiett Bluett on baritone – was people playing very sweetly. To listen to ‘That’s it! That’s the same band!” A particularly life-changing because this album, to watch it rotate and know year or two later, Carter was on tour “it solidified the legitimacy of the that this is possible, to go back and be with opera singer , saxophone. I could see myself in a the individual playing with that hard, who was doing a jazz crossover tour. situation such as that one.” bluesy, swinging approach, I was just When Battle was late for a rehearsal, In the early Nineties, as his career floored. I looked at my instrument and the musicians—Carter, pianist was just taking off, Carter was playing said, ‘Dang, you can do that?’” Carter , bassist Christian with both and Wynton now collects vintage —‘horn McBride, guitarist , Marsalis, trumpet players at the shop beauties’ he calls them—including percussionist – had an opposite ends of the spectrum in the a 1920s model he is repairing that opportunity to jam. “I started playing debate in jazz at the time about the was owned by Chu Berry, who played Nuages [one of Reinhardt’s best-loved primacy of upholding tradition vs. with Fletcher Henderson and Cab compositions] out of nowhere. Romero constant innovation. At the same time Calloway. “If you’re in your right said ‘I know that!’ And then it got that he was channeling his Swing mind, your horns are going to talk real tasty. And that’s when Kathleen Era saxophone hero Don Byas in the to you,” he says. “They’ll say, ‘You walked in. We looked at each other soundtrack to Robert Altman’s movie haven’t played me in a while.’” He’s and said, ‘Damn. We’re going to do Kansas City, he was performing and most likely bringing three with him to this.’” The result was Chasin’ the Gypsy, recording in real time with free-jazz Houston; a tenor, alto and soprano. a remarkable album that featured stalwarts such as Bluiett and Hemphill. Carter has released 18 albums as a Lubambo and Jay Berliner on guitars, And in 2010, Carter realized his leader or co-leader going back to 1991, Baptista on percussion, Carter’s youthful fantasy by recording with the on labels ranging from the Japanese cousin on violin and . “As my DIW label to Atlantic (which released Carter playing tenor saxophone, bass Chasin’ the Gypsy), Columbia, Mika Hasler and EmArcy. But prior to Live from Newport Jazz, Competition Foundation he had not released an album under his own name since At the Crossroads in 2011. He makes a point of noting that Impulse Records passed on his Django th Unchained organ trio. In fact, he said it twice. But 11 Mika Hasler perhaps Blue Note is where he belonged all along. “Oh man,” he says. “As the label puts it, ‘The Finest in Competition Jazz Since 1939.’ There’s history, legacy and longevity that goes with this label, and to be part of that in some fashion or form is a privilege and an honor.” Vocalist and pianist Kandace Springs grew up in Nashville, where her father, Scat Springs, was a respected session singer who instilled in her a love for great voices, from and to Luther Vandross and . She was signed to Blue Note after Don Was heard her sing ’s hit I Can’t Make You Love Me (produced by Was, coincidentally) at an audition at the Capitol Sunday, January 12, 2020 Records Tower in Hollywood. Her debut album, Soul Duncan Hall, Rice University Eyes, was released in 2016, followed by the crossover- oriented Indigo in 2018. She says her next album, First Prize: $10,000 due out in early 2020, will be a tribute to her favorite female singers. Titled The Women Who Raised Me, and Second Prize: $5,000 produced by ( ’s ex-husband and the producer of several of her albums), it includes Deadline for application: December 15, 2019 a duet with on Angel Eyes and guest appearances by saxophonists and Chris Potter, among others. James Francies is the latest pianist from Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts to make his mark on the international jazz scene. After graduating from HSPVA in 2013, he moved to New York to attend the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. Since then, his profile has continued to rise, from tours and recordings with Jeff “Tain” Watts, , Chris Potter, Pat Metheny and to playing on Chance the Rapper’s huge hit No Problem and sitting in with on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. All instruments may apply His debut album, Flight, was released on Blue Note Age: Under 23 by December 15, 2019 in 2018 and garnered strong reviews. The New York Winners recital: Feb. 7, 2020 Times called him “a pianist with liquid dynamism in Duncan Hall, Rice University his touch.” Apply online at: www.mikahaslercompetition.org Francies observes that Blue Note has also been home to fellow pianists and HSPVA grads Jason Moran and European Pastries since 1990 Robert Glasper. “Just to follow in their footsteps, let Wedding Cakes • Birthday Cakes alone in the footsteps of Herbie Hancock, Party Trays and all these other artists who recorded for the label, it’s an honor,” he says. “And there’s a responsibility that comes with it, too.” Rick Mitchell