James Francies Trio ft Burniss Travis & Jeremy Dutton + special guest BLACK THOUGHT

Plenty of young musicians show promise, but very few enjoy the sort of meteoric rise that pianist, keyboardist and composer James Francies is currently experiencing. At only 24, he’s played with jazz headliners like Pat Metheny, Chris Potter, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Stefon Harris, Eric Harland, and Terrace Martin, and racked up equally impressive credits in hip-hop and R&B: from shows with Ms. Lauryn Hill, José James, Common, and NAS, to studio time for Chance the Rapper’s Grammy-winning hit “No Problem”, Mark Ronson , Childish Gambino, YEBBA, Drake, and Kodak Black, to appearances with The Roots on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon alongside his mentor and friend Questlove.

Now comes Flight, the extraordinary debut album that welcomes Francies into the storied Blue Note Records family and finds him melding his jazz mastery and pop experience on 11 searching, engaging tracks. But as bold and new as this moment might seem for Francies, it’s also a homecoming, in more ways than one. Francies, like his Blue Note predecessors Robert Glasper, Jason Moran, Chris Dave and Kendrick Scott, is a proud Houstonite and a graduate of that city’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA), one of the nation’s most reliable incubators for era-defining jazz talent. “Just to follow in their footsteps, let alone in the footsteps of Herbie Hancock, Bud Powell and all of these other artists who recorded for the label, it’s an honor,” Francies says. “And there’s a responsibility that comes with it too.”

Called “a pianist with liquid dynamism in his touch” by the New York Times, Francies started on piano around age 4, with classical training and an education in the music of the church. Blessed with perfect pitch and synesthesia (or the ability to hear in colors), he attended his first jazz concert, by Houston-born piano legend Joe Sample, at age 6, and began studying jazz in junior high. Many deep influences followed, some of them surprising. Along with pianists like Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Mulgrew Miller, Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum and Taylor Eigsti, a longtime friend, Francies points to guitarists Allan Holdsworth and Mike Moreno and such trumpet masters as Nicholas Payton, Freddie Hubbard, Clifford Brown and Lee Morgan. A highly decorated tenure at HSPVA—including spots in the Monterey Jazz Festival’s Next Generation Jazz Orchestra, the Thelonious Monk Institute All-Star Jazz Sextet and the GRAMMY Jazz Session Combo—earned Francies a full scholarship to Manhattan’s New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music.

While he was earning his degree, Francies was also rapidly ascending the jazz ranks and building a professional career. Early bandstand time with Jeff “Tain” Watts helped him cut his teeth and raise his profile, as did his first international tour, with Chris Dave and the Drumhedz. Chris Potter tapped him for his trio along with drummer Eric Harland, and Pat Metheny assembled a trio with Francies and drummer Nate Smith. Francies’ own group, Kinetic, has garnered buzz at events like Newport Jazz Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, NYC Winterfest, and BRIC JazzFest. He met Questlove and Roots keyboardist James Poyser a few years ago, and since then has become a go-to resource for Quest and company—subbing for Poyser on Roots concerts and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon; participating in the Roots-produced Hamilton cast recording, in addition to other film and TV score work organized by Quest; and, currently, collaborating with The Roots emcee Black Thought on a Broadway show.

Francies says that his experiences outside of jazz have helped him with concepts like “assembling sounds, consistency, delivery and the ability to support,” and it certainly isn’t difficult to hear these lessons throughout Flight. An embodiment of the Blue Note ethos at this thriving moment in the label’s history, it’s a dynamic, ultramodern jazz record, infused with pop, hip-hop and R&B, that remains entertaining from start to finish.

 James Francies is a Blue Note Recording Artist, endorsed by Yamaha Pianos, Korg Keyboards, and is an IWC Brand Ambassador.

The 6 foot, Texas raised musician didn’t actually begin his career with the bass, he started as a violinist at Elementary Culture School. Only after his teacher picked him to play the large upright bass, because he was the tallest guy in the class, did he finally find his true calling. Travis was simultaneously a self-proclaimed hip-hop head who was a huge fan of acts like A Tribe Called Quest and loved the local Houston Chopped & Screwed scene birthed by DJ Screw, and didn’t feel confident about pursuing a career as a bassist. It would take a couple of encounters with vibraphonist Stefon Harris throughout his journey before he considered playing on a professional level. He developed his skills for a bit playing with a local orchestra before entering into the Houston jazz scene, and his career quickly took off from there.
Now based in Brooklyn, New York, the 23-year-old Travis is back on the live music scene after a year-long hiatus, and is ready to explore a new musical territory. Certainly not one of the gabbiest, and unsure at first exactly what he could offer our session together, it turned out that he actually was flooded with ideas once we got started, as is true with most musicians when given a chance to talk about the thing that they love most. 

Known neither as a spotlight-grabbing solo artist nor as the figurehead of the Roots, Black Thought is nonetheless widely recognized as one of the most skilled, incisive, and prolific rappers of his time, dating back to the '90s with Organix (1993), his group's recorded debut. Despite Thought's anchoring of a dozen studio albums with the Roots, including the Top Ten, Grammy-nominated releases Things Fall Apart (1999), Game Theory (2006), and How I Got Over (2010), demand for true spotlight-seizing projects has been high since the rapper scrapped an early-2000s solo project for MCA. Outside the Roots, Thought has worked in collaborative settings for the Streams of Thought trilogy (2018-2020), Cheat Codes (2022), and Glorious Game (2023), releases that have heightened his profile as a masterful street poet.

Tariq Luqmaan Trotter grew up in the Mount Airy and Point Breeze neighborhoods of Philadelphia. His childhood was marked by turmoil and tragedy. Before his first birthday, his father was killed. At the age of six, he accidentally set his house on fire. As Trotter later immersed himself in hip-hop culture and graphic art, he was arrested for tagging (spray-painting) a basketball court. While in high school, he dealt crack cocaine, and was eventually prompted by an uncle to escape the Philly streets by living temporarily in Detroit with other family members. Shortly after he returned to his hometown, his mother, who had struggled with crack addition, was fatally stabbed. Trotter further developed his interest in art at Philadelphia's High School for Creative & Performing Arts, where he met drummer Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson. This connection eventually enabled Trotter to redirect the pain and anger of his upbringing into rap music.

The alliance of Trotter and Thompson, forged in 1987, developed into a rap unit that, after numerous developments and name changes, settled into the Roots. The band made their independent recorded debut with Organix (1993) and shortly thereafter signed with major-label DGC, releasing the RIAA gold-certified Do You Want More?!!!??! (1995) and second consecutive Billboard Top Ten R&B/hip-hop album Illadelph Halflife (1996). The latter featured the Top 40 hit "What They Do," thereby making Trotter -- then known more commonly as Black Thought -- one of the least materialistic rappers to cross over. In the process, Thought had attained major hip-hop clout, epitomized not only by his inclusion in the cover photo of XXL magazine's "Greatest Day in Hip-Hop History" issue (October 1998), but also by the recognition he received at the shoot from Rakim, one of his primary inspirations.

Moved from DGC to MCA and primed for long-term mainstream presence, the Roots had their greatest success with Things Fall Apart (1999), which peaked at number four on the Billboard 200, eventually went platinum, and was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Rap Album. Its biggest single, the Erykah Badu collaboration "You Got Me," won the award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. Phrenology (2002) and The Tipping Point (2004) followed on MCA and Geffen, respectively, with the former set another gold-seller, also nominated for a Best Rap Album Grammy. The Roots then initiated their longest label affiliation with Def Jam, an era that has entailed artistically uncompromised and Grammy-nominated works such as Game Theory (2006), How I Got Over (2011), and Undun (2013). Meanwhile, the Roots became the house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and recorded albums with John Legend, Betty Wright, and Elvis Costello, though Thought was involved with only the first in the series, Wake Up! (2010), which won a Grammy for Best R&B Album.

Black Thought has been a featured artist on dozens of tracks since the start of the Roots' ascent, including titles by contemporaries such as Common, Pharoahe Monch, Ghostface Killah, Talib Kweli, and J Dilla. As a headliner, his output has been minimal. In 1998, he and producer J. Tacuma, better known as jazz bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, teamed up for a pair of 12" releases on Japan's P-Vine label. A couple years later, there was "Hardware," a 12" on MCA proclaimed as "the first joint from the debut solo album Masterpiece Theater." That project was shelved, though some of its material was used for the Roots' Phrenology.

The next solo release from Thought didn't arrive until 2018, on the heels of a mind-boggling ten-minute freestyle for Funkmaster Flex's Hot 97 radio show. Streams of Thought, Vol. 1, a five-track digital EP with production from 9th Wonder (four tracks) and Khrysis (one track), was issued that June. By then, Thought had also established himself as an actor, and had added to his list of credits with a recurring role in the dramatic television series The Deuce. That November, he issued Streams of Thought, Vol. 2, produced entirely by Salaam Remi. He then worked with Sean C to make Streams of Thought, Vol. 3: Cane & Able, issued in October 2020. The set featured "Good Morning" with Pusha T and Killer Mike as guest MCs and Swizz Beatz as hype man. In 2022, Thought starred in a musical theater adaptation of George S. Schuyler's 1931 novel Black No More, on which he also worked as a lyricist. He additionally teamed with Danger Mouse for Cheat Codes, released that August with a posthumous verse from MF Doom and additional collaborations with Joey Bada$$, Raekwon, and Michael Kiwanuka. The album entered the Billboard 200 at number 43. Next was Glorious Game, a 2023 release on which Thought was backed by dusty-groove synthesists El Michels Affair.