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For local jazz buffs, this is the summer of Christian McBride. The 43-year-old bass virtuoso will perform with a pair of Grammy-winning trios over the next couple of months, leading his own at Scullers on June 3 and 4, then joining Chick Corea and drummer Brian Blade at Rockport Music (July 25 and 26), the Newport Jazz Festival (July 29 and 30), and Tanglewood (July 31).
"McBride is a busy, multifaceted artist who’s constantly juggling projects, and the release of Bringin’ It gives his big-band fans a reason to celebrate.” —DownBeat
In the mid ‘90s when he was a young, frisky jazz guy from Philadelphia who was taking New York by storm, bassist Christian Scott talked to me for an article in Strings magazine about some of his heroes. On the jazz bass tip, he singled out Ray Brown, who embraced the youngster’s talent, and Ron Carter, who was, let’s say, not as enthusiastic and even mean-spirited.
Christian McBride doesn’t need a big band to make a big impression, as he’s shown us countless times — on the bass, on the bandstand and in the booth. But when he finally did assemble a big band of his own, he saw results:The Good Feeling, on Mack Avenue, won the 2011 Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album.
On January 5, 2017, the Jazz Connect Conference will present bassist, bandleader, educator, and advocate Christian McBride with the Bruce Lundvall Visionary Award. The Jazz Connect Conference created the Bruce Lundvall Visionary Award in 2014 in honor of the esteemed jazz record executive who was a champion and advocate for so many jazz artists over the last four decades.
A year before he died in 1977, the blind jazz genius Rahsaan Roland Kirk inspired an impromptu parade in Newark. One minute he was playing the downtown club Sparky J’s. The next he was leading his band, pied-piper-like, across the street to the Key Club, a different nightspot, while still making music on one of the three saxes he was known to play in unison and in harmony.
The annual jazz festival included a tribute to musician, producer, conductor, entertainment-company executive and humanitarian Quincy Jones, who grew up in Seattle, as well as the great performances the event is known for.
The esteemed bassist Christian McBride was born just after the close of the Civil Rights Movement, so he remembers learning about its heroes by flipping through the copies of his grandmother’s copies of Ebony and Jet magazines from the 1950s and ’60s. For many years he has worked on “The Movement Revisited,” a musical suite celebrating four figures from those pages who inspired him as a child: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks and Muhammad Ali. The suite, finally released as an album Friday, mixes hard-nosed small-group playing, soaring big-band orchestration, spoken readings from figures like Sonia Sanchez and Wendell Pierce, and choral singing. On “Sister Rosa,” the piece dedicated to Parks, a big band and a choir both savor the deep, mid-tempo swing feel, leaning on McBride’s bass for support as the voices unite in a long, weary drawl, quoting Parks: “I’m tired.” RUSSONELLO
Christian McBride’s big band had just finished a bustling rendition of “The Shade of the Cedar Tree” on the main stage of the Newport Jazz Festival here on Saturday afternoon when the bandleader felt compelled to speak.
"He's that rare jazz bassist who's a genuine leader. The success of Bringin' It begs the question: What can't Christian McBride do?” —Stereophile
To see Ray’s legacy, you don’t have to look far. It lives on in the countless musicians he influenced, including the ones here with us tonight. And we’ve got Rickey Minor conducting the Christian McBride Big Band using some of Ray’s actual arrangements. And let me tell you, these guys can play anything, and they play it well.
Last Thursday night, at the ninth annual Inside the Jazz Note at Montclair State’s Alexander Kasser Hall, Christian McBride sat down with none other than jazz great Wynton Marsalis.