Christian McBride

While pursuing classical studies at the Juilliard School, Christian McBride was recruited to the road by saxophonist Bobby Watson. His new curriculum: a decade’s worth of study through hundreds of recording sessions and countless gigs. In 2000 his “studies” culminated in the formation of his longest-running project, the Christian McBride Band. In 2009 McBride began focusing this same energy through a more traditional lens his critically-acclaimed Inside Straight quintet, and again with the Christian McBride Big Band and its Grammy-winning 2012 release The Good Feeling. McBride next tapped rising stars pianist Christian Sands and drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr. for the Christian McBride Trio’s Grammy-nominated Out Here. His 2021 release with Inside Straight, Live at the Village Vanguard, was preceded by 2020’s studio album The Movement Revisited. Christian McBride’s New Jawn is a quartet project, whose eponymous 2018 release featured eight bandmember-written originals and one Wayne Shorter song. Currently he hosts and produces The Lowdown: Conversations With Christian on SiriusXM and NPR’s Jazz Night in America He is also deeply involved with nationally-recognized community arts organization Jazz House Kids. From jazz (Chick Corea, Pat Metheny) to R&B (Natalie Cole, James Brown) to pop/rock (Sting, Paul McCartney) to hip-hop/neo-soul (The Roots, Queen Latifah) to classical (Kathleen Bat tle, Shanghai Quartet), he is a luminary with one hand ever reaching for new heights, and the other extended in fellowship. More at christian mcbride. com.