{"id":6313,"date":"2023-08-02T08:13:17","date_gmt":"2023-08-02T13:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/?p=6313"},"modified":"2024-06-25T11:28:03","modified_gmt":"2024-06-25T16:28:03","slug":"friends-old-new-mcbride-newport-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/friends-old-new-mcbride-newport-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Friends Old and New: Artistic Director Christian McBride Previews the 2023 Newport Jazz Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We conclude our series of 2023 Newport Jazz Festival pre-event interviews with a conversation with Christian McBride. Fittingly, our third interview with McBride covers his three roles at the Newport Jazz Festival: bass heavyweight, skilled educator, and curator. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

McBride’s bona fides as an artist are beyond reproach. He’s worked with legends of jazz – Gary Bartz, McCoy Tyner, Joe Henderson, and Harold Mabern, among them – as well as those more comfortably removed from that lineage, including James Brown and Queen Latifah. He has eight Grammy Awards to his credit. Going back thirty years, he was still a young bassist who had not yet released his debut as a leader, Gettin’ To It <\/em>(Verve, 1994). But he was part of an excellent quartet led by Joshua Redman and featuring Brad Mehldau, and Brian Blade, which would go on to record Moodswing <\/em>(Warner Bros. 1993), one of the best records of its era. Before their album release, they played Newport in the Summer of 1993. Now, three decades later, they reunite – after tours since the pandemic- there as well. Not one to focus solely on the past, McBride will also present his perennially special Jam Jawn group, this time with Bob James, Ravi Coltrane, Nate Smith, Eric Krasno, Negah Santos, and Celisse. We get into both upcoming performances with McBride, along with his lesser-discussed avant-garde work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of his role as an educator, McBride has been an ambassador of the music to the general public. He has been the longtime host of NPR’s Jazz Night in America<\/em>, sharing concerts and stories about the vibrancy of jazz with willing listeners. He’s also hosted and produced SIRIUSXM’s jazz interview series “The Lowdown: Conversations With Christian\u201d and the Newport Jazz Festival’s “Live Wax” Instagram series. He is also actively involved with Jazz House Kids, a renowned community arts organization led by his wife, Melissa Walker. At this summer’s Newport Jazz Festival, McBride will bring skills developed in these experiences to “The Mindful Drummer,” a dialogue with longtime friend and colleague Brian Blade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a curator, McBride has served as the Newport Jazz Festival’s Artistic Director since 2016. Through an artful selection of bookings, he has been able to help produce an event that, this summer, has nearly completely sold out for the entire weekend. Part of McBride’s success has come from his openness, in keeping with the event’s now sixty-nine-year history, to look beyond genre labels to the quality of the music presented. This broad approach, for 2023, has resulted in performances by artists ranging from Angel Bat Dawid and James Brandon Lewis to Anderson .Paak and Big Gigantic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our conversation with McBride, we touch on all of the above and more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PostGenre: In the past, you have announced the personnel of your Jam Jawn pretty early on. This year it mostly stayed a secret until the end. Was there a reason you waited this year to announce it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Christian McBride: Well, it was because I didn’t have everybody confirmed. I had about half of the band confirmed, but I wanted to wait until I had everybody locked in.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PG: Okay. One thing you did confirm pretty early on, however, was that Bob James<\/a> would be there on piano\/keyboard. How did you first meet Bob James?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

CM: I played on an album of his back in the mid-90s called Straight Up<\/em> (Warner Bros., 1996). It was the first acoustic trio record he had made since the ’60s. When I recorded it with him in 1995, it had already been almost thirty years since he made an acoustic trio record. I haven’t played with him since then; another almost thirty years now.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

<\/div><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div>