While those styles are at the core of McBride’s musical persona, he doesn’t limit himself in his creative pursuits — even under the Jazz umbrella, he has pursued more abstract and experimental projects. The bassist is incredibly versatile and has an encyclopedic knowledge of music from the inside out, regardless of style. He has collaborated or done sessions with artists from seemingly every genre, including James Brown, Isaac Hayes, Paul McCartney, Willie Nelson, Sting, The Roots, D’Angelo, Kathleen Battle and Sonus Quartet (the roster of Jazz artists he’s worked with is basically “everybody”). Host of NPR’s Jazz Night in America and SiriusXM’s The Lowdown: Conversations With Christian (so you know his banter game is strong), McBride has also served in various roles for numerous music and arts organizations, most recently becoming the artistic director of the legendary Newport Jazz Festival after taking the reins from fest founder George Wein.
Despite having such a formidable résumé, 1/100th of which would be considered a great lifelong career for most musicians, McBride could still qualify as a “young lion” in the Jazz world, if you’re going strictly by age — he’s just 44. Born in Philadelphia, McBride began playing electric bass at 8, developing his skills to the point where, by the time he was 17, he moved to New York City to study at Juilliard but was promptly plucked from school to tour with saxophonist Bobby Watson’s band. After becoming a top sideman, McBride released his first album as bandleader, Gettin’ To It, when he was 22, showcasing a fairly traditional approach. But after that (maybe in part due to criticism that he was playing things too straight), he started blending Jazz with Rock, Funk and Soul on albums for labels like Verve and Warner Brothers. Perhaps satiated by his various other projects, around the start of this decade, McBride’s band Inside Straight marked a re-commitment to the acoustic Jazz traditions he’d been gradually hinting at more and more.
In 2013, the bassist continued in the Post Bop vein with the Christian McBride Trio, featuring pianist Christian Sands and drummer Ulysses Owens. The trio released the well-received Out Here album in 2013 and, two years later, Live at the Village Vanguard, which earned McBride his fifth Grammy and featured a fresh take on the theme from the 1976 movie Car Wash. The trio format suits McBride well — he is currently on tour introducing his new project, Tip City, which includes young celebrated pianist Emmet Cohen and guitarist Dan Wilson, an Akron, Ohio native.
McBride is hosting a master class presentation Friday afternoon for the Jazz department at the School for Creative and Performing Arts, after which he’ll bring Tip City to Xavier’s campus for an 8 p.m. show. Visit xavier.edu/musicseries for tickets.
