Bassist and booker Christian McBride is a rare jazzman with an approving ear for hip-hop.
Christian McBride, the wunderkind bassist, is finally having a middle-aged thought.
The leading jazz bassist of his generation wishes he weren't on the road so much. Speaking by phone the other day after a snowstorm in Santa Fe, N.M., McBride said he's keen to spend more time at home in Montclair, N.J., even when the plumbing breaks.
“We had one of the pipes in the laundry room just fall off the wall, and there was water shooting all over the place," said McBride, 35, who lives there with his wife, jazz singer Melissa Walker. “Boy, that was scary."
Most of the breaks McBride attends to these days are of the soloing kind. The much-in-demand bassist will appear tonight at the Keswick Theatre to stoke the fusion pyrotechnics of guitarist Pat Metheny's trio with drummer Antonio Sanchez.
McBride, who started playing with Metheny in 1993, still lives a lot of his life out of a suitcase. He will be backing keyboardist Chick Corea for a tour this year. And McBride recently won a Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation grant, enabling him to take his quartet - pianist Geoff Keezer, saxophonist Ron Blake, and drummer Terreon Gully - to Philadelphia and other venues this year.
But McBride, a graduate of Philly's performing arts high school, is now as apt to be composing or playing the role of booking impresario. He's writing commissioned works, picking musicians for Los Angeles venues, and promoting Harlem's first jazz museum.
Jazz players have not historically roosted in suburbia or appreciated hip-hop, but McBride does both proudly. He grew up in Philly listening to soul singer James Brown, and believes that jazz has grown from the energy injected by hip-hop and funk.
“The best music has always come from the street," he said. “What you're studying in jazz is an older form of hip-hop. Even in the music of Monk and Bird and Dizzy, there's a certain guttural element as well as high art that a lot of people forget."
Christian McBride, the wunderkind bassist, is finally having a middle-aged thought.
The leading jazz bassist of his generation wishes he weren't on the road so much. Speaking by phone the other day after a snowstorm in Santa Fe, N.M., McBride said he's keen to spend more time at home in Montclair, N.J., even when the plumbing breaks.
“We had one of the pipes in the laundry room just fall off the wall, and there was water shooting all over the place," said McBride, 35, who lives there with his wife, jazz singer Melissa Walker. “Boy, that was scary."
Most of the breaks McBride attends to these days are of the soloing kind. The much-in-demand bassist will appear tonight at the Keswick Theatre to stoke the fusion pyrotechnics of guitarist Pat Metheny's trio with drummer Antonio Sanchez.
McBride, who started playing with Metheny in 1993, still lives a lot of his life out of a suitcase. He will be backing keyboardist Chick Corea for a tour this year. And McBride recently won a Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation grant, enabling him to take his quartet - pianist Geoff Keezer, saxophonist Ron Blake, and drummer Terreon Gully - to Philadelphia and other venues this year.
But McBride, a graduate of Philly's performing arts high school, is now as apt to be composing or playing the role of booking impresario. He's writing commissioned works, picking musicians for Los Angeles venues, and promoting Harlem's first jazz museum.
Jazz players have not historically roosted in suburbia or appreciated hip-hop, but McBride does both proudly. He grew up in Philly listening to soul singer James Brown, and believes that jazz has grown from the energy injected by hip-hop and funk.
“The best music has always come from the street," he said. “What you're studying in jazz is an older form of hip-hop. Even in the music of Monk and Bird and Dizzy, there's a certain guttural element as well as high art that a lot of people forget."
For more information contact All About Jazz.
