The busiest bassist
Christian Mcbride, sideman extraordinaire, squeezes in a week at Birdland fronting a fiery quintet
Soul legend James Brown was known as the “hardest working man in show business.” Bassist and bandleader Christian Mcbride, who idolizes Brown, is vying for that title today. He’s leading his fiery jazz ensemble, Inside Straight, in a five-day run that kicks off Tuesday at Birdland.
“Were going to use the Birdland engagement to break in some new music, which we’ll be recording the following week,” he reveals. “It’ll mostly be originals by me and the cats in the band.”
Joining the sensitive yet steamrolling bassist will be saxophonist Steve Wilson, vibraphonist Warren Wolf, pianist Peter Martin and drummer Carl Allen.
“When this group first got together in 2007, it was on the heels of my having toured with Pat Metheny’s trio for many years,” recalls Mcbride. “And I was about to tour with the Chick Corea-john Mclaughlin Five Peace Band. And having played for seven years with the ensemble I had at that time, the Christian Mcbride Band, it occurred to me that I had not played in a band that was all acoustic, right down the middle straight-ahead. And I missed that.”
So, he says, he “put together a band that would give me some old-fashioned grits and gravy swingin’.”
As the premier jazz bassist of his generation, McBride, 39, melds virtuosity and instrumental finesse with an earthy soulfulness that fits any musical situation.
He has been a sideman with a plethora of star musicians and jazz legends his senior, yet these days he finds himself playing with musicians his junior. For instance, he leads a trio with pianist Christian Sands, 22, and drummer Ulysses Owens Jr., who’s 29. He recently mentored young musicians for the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, too. Mcbride is also artistic director of Jazz House Kids, a nonprofit music education organization launched by his wife, jazz vocalist Melissa Walker.
Until recently, he was co-executive director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, where interviewing skills for the “Harlem Speaks” oral history series led to a show on Siriusxm radio, “Conversations With Christian.” And two weeks ago he was guest host on WNYC’S “Soundcheck” for three days. One of his guests was “Law & Order” actress S. Epatha Merkerson, who has made a documentary, “The Contradictions of Fair Hope.” It’s about the history and irony of a black American benevolent society that began in Alabama a century or so ago. Mcbride composed the score.
“I always had a dream to write for film,” he says. “And the fact that my first score out of the gate was for her, someone who we’ve admired as an actress for so long, that was a particularly big thrill.” Another big thrill came when Mcbride won a Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Recording for his 2011 big band recording, “The Good Feeling.” But the win was bittersweet, like the blues.
‘My maternal grandfather, Anthony Mcbride Sr., passed away on Feb 4. I went to L.A. for the Grammys and won on Feb. 12. Then the next day I flew to Philly to bury him ... You’re caught in this conundrum of ... the blues. There’s no other word to describe it. How can you be so happy and sad at the same time?”
Since November 2010, Mcbride lost several people crucial to his development: both maternal grandparents, his best friend while growing up in Philadelphia (who was murdered), and three mentors: organist Trudy Pitts, pianist James (Sid) Simmons and bassist Charles Fambrough.
His grandfather was his father figure, and “my closest, closest friend in the world,” he says. “There was nothing under the sun that I couldnt tell him. He wouldn’t judge me; he’d just say, check this out. We’d have a good laugh about it and then a pat on the back when it was over.”
The emotional turmoil aside, his career, from performer to composer, teacher and radio host, is blazing ahead and Mcbride is not sure where it’s all heading.
“I’m looking at a table with a lot of little plates on it, and I’m just picking from each plate,” he says. “At some point I’ll get full, and I’ll say just give me this plate. I’m not sure which plate that will be yet, but I can almost guarantee it’ll always be the one with a bass in my hand.”