He belongs with the family. The family that is jazz before, jazz now, and jazz tomorrow. He is all of that and boldly so. There is a brazen fearlessness that has the family talking and especially listening.
He is a graduate of Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, Texas that seems to be unable to help gifting the world some of the best new artistic magic. Houston has given the world these stellar music makers: Robert Glasper, Jason Moran and Kendrick Scott. The New York Times describes the piano player’s way of creating this way: “a pianist with liquid dynamism in his touch”. That is ‘WOW’ deserving. He is a fellow synesthete, he hears music in colors.
Early music training and exposure was in the church and early lessons in classical music. His influences and experiences are varied including with R&B and collaborations with The Roots and Questlove. That good time spent has left beautiful impressions on the artist. These are his words about how the experiences affected his artistry; concepts stemming from his time spent, some fresh ways, including; “assembling sounds, consistency, delivery and the ability to support”.
Listen to Francies and you can hear how he embraces family.