DACAMERA of Houston continues its 2019–2020 jazz series with Blue Note Records 80th Birthday Celebration, an evening honoring the legendary jazz record label with performances by three outstanding artists on Saturday, Nov. 2 at 8 p.m. at the Wortham Theater Center’s Cullen Theater. The first date in a nationwide anniversary tour, the concert lineup features Kandace Springs, James Francies and the James Carter Organ Trio, each performing a set of their own music, followed by a finale with all of the artists coming together to perform a classic Blue Note tune.

Nashville singer and pianist Kandace Springs counts Billie Holiday, Roberta Flack and Norah Jones as her heroes, but—as evidenced by her sparkling recordings—mimics none of them. She will release her third Blue Note album, The Women Who Raised Me, in early 2020. After her head-turning 2014 self-titled EP—which caught the attention of Prince, who raved “Kandace has a voice that could melt snow”—Springs released her debut album, Soul Eyes, in 2016, followed by her electric 2018 album Indigo.

Houston native James Francies released his Blue Note debut, Flight, in 2018, and is experiencing a meteoric rise in the jazz world and beyond. The pianist and composer has played with jazz headliners Pat Metheny, Chris Potter, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Stefon Harris, Eric Harland, Terrace Martin and more, and has racked up equally impressive credits in hip-hop and R&B. He has enjoyed gigs with Ms. Lauryn Hill, José James, Common and Nas, has recorded with Chance the Rapper, and has made appearances with The Roots on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

Saxophonist James Carter leads an intergenerational organ trio, featuring rising B3 organist Gerad Gibbs and the propulsive drum support of Alex White. Carter’s recently released Blue Note debut album, James Carter Organ Trio: Live From Newport Jazz, is a live soul-jazz reinvention of Django Reinhardt songs. The Detroit-based artist evokes early jazz, jump blues, the avant-garde and other lessons from his vast knowledge of the music of the African-American experience.

DACAMERA’s jazz music series continues with Branford Marsalis on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2020, and the Vijay Iyer Sextet on Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020.

Tickets for Blue Note Records 80th Birthday Celebration start at $37.50 and are available by contacting DACAMERA, 1402 Sul Ross, at 713-524-5050 or online at www.dacamera.com. Tickets for students and senior citizens are always half-price. $5 student rush tickets are available 30 minutes before the concert begins.

About Blue Note Records

It took the joining of many natural forces to create and define one of the greatest Jazz labels there has ever been: Jazz-loving German Jewish immigrants on the run from Nazism (Alfred Lion & Francis Wolff), a New Jersey optometrist moonlighting as a recording engineer (Rudy Van Gelder), a classical music-loving graphic designer (Reid Miles), and the most incredible musicians that have ever walked the earth. The elements that each brought to the table—boundless passion and impeccable A&R instincts, elegant and insightful photography, sterling sound quality, strikingly original cover artwork, and consistently transcendent music—were all essential to the label's early success. Together they created a vivid Blue Note aesthetic. The whole could not have existed without each of the parts.

Blue Note Records was founded in 1939, and the label’s legendary catalog traces the entirety of Jazz history from Hot Jazz, Boogie Woogie, and Swing, through Bebop, Hard Bop, Post-Bop, Soul Jazz, Avant-Garde, and Fusion, and into the diverse and vibrant sounds of today. The artists Blue Note has recorded represent the pillars of Jazz: Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Jimmy Smith, Dexter Gordon, Grant Green, Lou Donaldson, Donald Byrd, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner, Andrew Hill, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, and many more.

After a brief dormancy from 1981-1984 during which producer/historian Michael Cuscuna kept the label’s legacy alive with a series of reissues on EMI, Blue Note returned reinvigorated by the leadership of Bruce Lundvall and has since established itself as the most-respected and longest-running Jazz label in the world, remaining home to some of the most prominent stars and cutting-edge innovators in Jazz while at the same time broadening its horizons to include quality music in many genres. During Lundvall’s 30-year tenure, Blue Note remained a haven for the most creative voices in Jazz, and also had its share of commercial successes from Bobby McFerrin, Dianne Reeves, Cassandra Wilson, Us3, Norah Jones, Al Green, Amos Lee, Medeski Martin & Wood, Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis.

The same must be said of Don Was, the consummate music man who joined Blue Note in 2011 as Chief Creative Officer and became President of the label in 2012. With Was at the helm, Blue Note has renewed its dedication to Lion’s original vision that “any particular style of playing which represents an authentic way of musical feeling is genuine expression.” Lion’s words still ring true and provide a blueprint that includes Robert Glasper’s visionary melding of Jazz, R&B, and Hip-Hop; eclectic singers from Norah Jones to Gregory Porter to Kandace Springs; and the full spectrum of instrumental Jazz artists from legends like Wayne Shorter, Charles Lloyd, and Dr. Lonnie Smith to future legends including Ambrose Akinmusire, James Francies, and Joel Ross. Blue Note Records is one of the flagship labels of the Capitol Music Group and Universal Music Group.