Nearly everyone’s favorite acoustic bassist to emerge in the 1990s, Christian McBride’s large sound and expertise, both with plucked and bowed solos, recall Ray Brown and Paul Chambers. He started on electric bass when he was eight and took R&B gigs in high school, but by then he was getting more interested in jazz and playing the acoustic bass. McBride studied at Juilliard and then played briefly in the bands of Bobby Watson, Benny Golson, Roy Hargrove, and Freddie Hubbard. He toured with the Benny Green Trio, played duets with Ray Brown at the 1994 Monterey Jazz Festival, and recorded his debut as a leader for Verve before touring with his own group in 1995.
McBride has appeared on more than 300 recordings and is a three-time Grammy Award winner. Beginning with Family Affair in 1998, McBride opened up his sound and incorporated more of the pop, funk, and fusion styles he grew up with. This approach continued through such albums as Sci-Fi and Vertical Vision. Having jumped labels from Verve to Warner in the early 2000s, McBride made yet another label change, releasing the more straight-ahead New York Time on Chesky in 2006. In 2009, McBride returned with an equally straight-ahead set of mostly original tunes, Kind of Brown—the start of his association with Mack Avenue Records— followed byThe Good Feeling, his first turn as leader of a big band. The duets album Conversations with Christian followed in 2011. In 2013, McBride returned to working with his Inside Straight quintet for the album People Music. In 2013, McBride released Out Here, introducing his latest working group—a trio, embracing his role as standard-bearer and mentor. Pianist Christian Sandsa New Haven CT native, and drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr.—both younger, emerging artists—have been performing with McBride’s smallest group for about three years.
Christian McBride appeared in 1996 on the inaugural Litchfield Jazz Festival with Carl Allen on drums, Joey Calderazzo on piano, and Tim Warfield on saxophone, as a leader at the astonishing age of 23. He was in stellar company that year, appearing alongside legends Amhad Jamal, JJ Johnson, Mario Pavone, and Rufus Reid, and newcomers, who, like himself, have become tremendously well known and respected—Diana Krall, Terence Blanchard, Mark Turner, John Stetch, the late Thomas Chapin, Renee Rosnes, Russell Malone, Peter Bernstein, Larry Goldings, Bill Stewart, Mark Turner among them.
Christian will close the 20th Anniversary Litchfield Jazz Festival on Sunday August 9 at 5:30.
