Christian McBride Trio Celebrates Long Term
Residency at Historic New York City Venue
with Live at the Village Vanguard -
Available September 18 via Mack Avenue Records
When Philadelphia-born bassist/bandleader Christian McBride
arrived in New York in 1989 as a Juilliard student, he was the
"Godchild of the Groove" with unlimited potential. Today, with over 300
recordings as a sideman and 11 critically acclaimed albums as a leader,
he now reigns supreme as the "Lord of the Lower Frequencies." He's the
influential and ubiquitous bassist of his generation, as evidenced by
his quintet Inside Straight, his big band, his trio and his work with
everybody from James Brown, Pat Metheny, Chick Corea and Wynton Marsalis
to Sting, The Roots, Bruce Hornsby and Paul McCartney.
It
is fitting that the four-time Grammy® Award-winning McBride would
eventually record at the Village Vanguard, the most hallowed and
historical nightclub in jazz: an underground Mount Olympus where the
gods and titans of the music - from John Coltrane to Bill Evans - have
cast their syncopated spells.
"You can literally feel the ghosts of all of the legends that played there," McBride says. "You feel Coltrane hovering in the vortex. You feel Monk hovering in the vortex. Miles Davis, Mingus... you feel all of that in the air."
And with his new Mack Avenue Records album, Live at the Village Vanguard, you can feel and hear McBride in the same air, along with his magnificent trio, which features drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr. and pianist Christian Sands. They swing and swoon on nine tracks of originals, jazz standards and some surprise R&B/pop selections.
This
record is the fruit of McBride's long association with the Vanguard,
where his first appearance as a leader for the historic club was in
1995. In 2007, the bassist and charismatic club owner Lorraine Gordon
started an annual one-week residency, which featured McBride's quintet,
Inside Straight. "Lorraine enjoyed my trio and my quintet, Inside
Straight. We had such large crowds, so after a few years with such
supportive audiences, we added an extra week. Instead of doing the same
band for two weeks, I just started bringing in a different band. This
has been an ongoing relationship that I look forward to maintaining as
long as I can."
As
encouraging as this association was, McBride's fear of being typecast
as a Ray Brown clone almost caused this trio to not be. "I thought the
very last thing I wanted to do was to put myself in a trio, because then
I'll never be able to shed the Ray Brown comparison," he says. "And
then one day I decided that that's sort of a silly reason not to start a
trio, if musically that's what makes sense. There were a few gigs that
[saxophonist] Steve Wilson and [vibraphonist] Warren Wolf were
unavailable for, so I decided to play with the rhythm section. Peter
Martin was playing piano and Ulysses was playing drums. In 2010,
Christian Sands started subbing for Peter in Inside Straight. So we
started doing trio gigs and that's how the group was born.
"In
trying to find repertoire for the trio in our early stages, I tried to
come up with songs that were easy to learn and that you can put your own
spin on them," he says. The opening track, Wes Montgomery's "Fried
Pies," originally released on the guitarist's 1963 LP, Boss Guitar,
burns with a quicksilver, straight-ahead groove, as does the trio's
torrid take on J.J. Johnson's "Interlude" from Cannonball Adderley's
1965 Domination album.
Sands'
lilting composition "Sand Dune" would make a perfect companion to
Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" on any playlist, while the well-worn
standard "Cherokee" is rendered at a blistering,
swing-at-the-speed-of-sound. In contrast, the trio's take on the
spiritual "Down By The Riverside" grooves in a medium tempo buoyed by
Owens' expert and inspired drumming. Billie Holiday's "Good Morning
Heartache" is reborn by the trio with a ghostly, rubato intro, which
evolves into a soulful, sonic séance.
Two
selections from the album aurally illustrate how McBride's outward
embrace of non-jazz material harkens back to a time when jazz had a
long-standing engagement with pop music. The trio's treatment of the Rod
Temperton-composed ballad "The Lady In My Life," (from Michael
Jackson's uber-LP Thriller) resonates with the same kind of
noir nuance Bill Evans was known for. "If anyone can get over the fact
that it's not 'a jazz tune,' they'd be able to notice that it's got one
of the most gorgeous melodies," McBride says. The album concludes with a
spirited take on the funky title theme song the 1977 movie "Car Wash."
"This was one tune where even my band members looked at me side-eyes
[laughs]," McBride says. "Even my wife said, 'so what's next? 'I Will
Survive'?"
McBride's
inspirations Ray Brown and James Brown, his respect for non-jazz genres
and his outgoing personality account for this sensational recording and
for his growing stature as a jazz spokesperson and ambassador.
McBride
hosts and produces "The Lowdown: Conversations With Christian," on
SiriusXM satellite radio and National Public Radio's weekly show, "Jazz
Night In America." He also serves as Artistic Advisor for Jazz
Programming at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), and he
works with Jazz House Kids, a nationally recognized community arts
organization founded by his wife, vocalist Melissa Walker, dedicated to
educating children through jazz.
"I'm
glad to have these vehicles, like the NPR show, like the SiriusXM
show," he says, "where I can tell people who may, or may not be into
jazz, 'hey, come on over and play with us'." Live at the Village Vanguard is the titan bassist's infectious invitation to come swing with him.
About Christian McBride Trio:
"When
I first met Ulysses, he was a student at my summer camp in Aspen, CO.
He had a lot of maturity in his playing, particularly the way he played
brushes," says McBride. "I could tell he spent a lot of time with Lewis
Nash and Kenny Washington and really studied the legendary drummers. And
it was a relief to hear a young drummer who wasn't coming out of the
same bag as other drummers.
"When
I first met Christian, I was told he was a protégé of Dr. Billy Taylor,
Hank Jones and Oscar Peterson, all of those legendary elder statesmen
of the piano," McBride says. "But then, I heard him playing all of this
esoteric, angular music coming out of an Andrew Hill/Paul Bley bag. And
then, I found out he'd been studying with Vijay Iyer, Jason Moran and
Gonzalo Rubalcaba. I thought man; this cat knows the whole language.
"I
realized that with guys like Ulysses and Christian, we can go anywhere
we want to go: angular, swinging, esoteric, blues, impressionistic and
funk."
Christian McBride Trio · Live at the Village Vanguard
Mack Avenue Records · Release Date: September 18, 2015
For more information on Christian McBride, visit: ChristianMcBride.com
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