28 SAT 8 PM BLUE NOTE RECORDS NOV 2 Cullen Theater, TH 80 BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION Wortham Theater Center THE STATE OF JAZZ 2019 FEATURING Kandace Springs Kandace Springs, voice, keys James Carter, saxophone 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 Donald Byrd and and they will probably tell you that Alexander White on drums. The Ronnie Laws, among others. But it is the year World War II broke out trio’s debut album on the label, Live when EMI bought United Artists 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 Bruce Lundvall oversaw both was the year that Coleman Hawkins keyboardist James Francies. an ambitious CD reissue series and recorded Body and Soul, which as In the early years, Alfred Lion signed notable new artists such as Carter explains laid the blueprint recorded the sort of traditional jazz Dianne Reeves, Joe Lovano, John for the modern jazz approach to and boogie-woogie piano he had Scofield, Jason Moran and Norah the tenor saxophone. Carter also heard as a young man in Berlin. The Jones, whose 2002 debut album, notes that 1939 was the year Charlie label’s first hit was Sidney Bechet’s Come Away With Me, 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 bebop. And, most encouragement of saxophonist Ike by the Universal Music Group 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 Don Was took over as president of refugee from Nazi Germany named WWII. Thelonious Monk 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 Art Blakey. Horace Silver, who between discovering and promoting a new generation of cutting-edge named Max Margulis, founded Blue remained with Blue Note for a RECORDS NOTE BLUE Note Records in New York City. quarter of a century, showed up in jazz artists such as Francies and the early 1950s. Rudy Van Gelder 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— Robert Glasper’s album Black Radio, Horace Silver… Dr. Lonnie Smith, studio in 1959. In 1956, Jimmy Smith 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 Leo Parker stuff… anything survivors from its Sixties Golden with Jimmy Smith and Stanley cranking out jazz masterpieces— mostly centered on hard bop but Age including Wayne Shorter 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 Detroit, 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 Bobby Hutcherson’s Components, Note benefit compilation album Wolff and incorporated into the both featuring Herbie Hancock on of new and old tracks. Needless to cover art by graphic designer Reid piano and Joe Chambers 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 Liberty Records 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, clarinet. 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 violin, 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 Charlie Parker. “I was coming buy. One CD kept yelling out to me; of David Murray on tenor, Julius from Johnny Hodges with Duke Swinging with Django. I took it home Hemphill and Oliver Lake 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 Kathleen Battle, saxophone.