New York, NY (Top40 Charts) The 8-time GRAMMY Award winner Christian McBride has announced the upcoming release of Christian McBride's New Jawn: Prime. The album reflects the influence of the masters he's studied under throughout his remarkable career, even as it reconfirms McBride's place in the pantheon of today's living legends of jazz. McBride has also shared the track "Head Bedlam," a selection that opens the album with a series of dazzlingly chaotic runs before settling into a robust funk groove. Christian McBride's New Jawn: Prime will be released on February 24th via McBride's
Brother Mister imprint on Mack Avenue
Music Group, and is currently available for pre-save.
In addition to receiving his sixteenth GRAMMY nomination for Best Jazz Instrumental Album this year, McBride also swept DownBeat's 2022 Readers Poll, winning the Artist of the Year, Bassist of the Year, and Producer of the Year categories. He also secured additional accolades at the inaugural Jazz
Music Awards, winning in the Best Mainstream Artist and Best Duo, Group, or Band categories (with his group Inside Straight).
McBride is an elder statesman ahead of his time, possessed of the gravitas and renown expected of that title, yet he's rarely conservative in his work, constantly looking beyond the next creative horizon. Uniquely for someone who has increasingly become the face of the genre, McBride has adamantly resisted the role of gatekeeper, refusing to adhere to strict definitions of what constitutes "jazz." Instead he has channeled his wealth of influences and experiences into his own music and continues to seek out the next chapter in its ongoing evolution, while serving as a model of ambitious diversity for those seeking to define it.
Prime exemplifies jazz greats at the zenith of their powers who insist on scaling greater heights. The New Jawn quartet - McBride, trumpeter Josh Evans, saxophonist and bass clarinetist Marcus Strickland, and drummer Nasheet Waits - has managed to maintain a sense of freshness and daring that evokes the thrills of a group of brash upstarts, while navigating a wide spectrum of improvisational moods and daunting compositional challenges that could only be pulled off by four musicians of this unmatched caliber.
"I think that all of us are at our prime as musicians," McBride said, explaining the album's title, before slyly correcting himself. "No, I'll think positive - we're almost at our prime."
That ambitious optimism is perhaps the key to McBride's remarkable success. He clearly believes strongly that there's always room for growth and more to achieve, regardless of the remarkable list of accomplishments that he's already chalked up. At 50, the bassist and composer sits at the pinnacle of the jazz world, both a globally esteemed artist and a respected authority and advocate for the music.
Beyond his universally recognized virtuosity, McBride has won eight Grammy Awards, garnered acclaim for his poignant ode, The Movement, Revisited, and performed multiple times at the White House. Beyond his own work he's a tireless champion for jazz's continued relevance through his work as Artistic
Director of the Newport Jazz Festival, host of the NPR radio program Jazz Night in America, Artistic
Director of the music education organizations Jazz House Kids and Jazz Aspen, Artistic Advisor for the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and its TD
James Moody Jazz Festival, and Associate Artistic
Director for the
National Jazz Museum in Harlem.
He is a living example of the torch-passing tradition of jazz, having worked and apprenticed with genre icons like
Sonny Rollins, McCoy Tyner, Milt Jackson, Chick Corea, Freddie Hubbard, and Ray Brown, as well as giants of R&B, rock, hip-hop, and classical music; while sharing that priceless experience with new generations through his work as a bandleader (rising stars who've risen through the ranks of his ensembles include vibraphonist Warren Wolf, pianist Christian Sands, and drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr.) and as an educator.
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Christian McBride's New Jawn: Prime Tracklist:
01. Head Bedlam
02. Prime
03. Moonchild
04. Obsequious
05. The Lurkers
06. The Good Life
07. Dolphy Dust
08. East Broadway Rundown
The Movement Revisited: A Musical Portrait of Four Icons:
The seminal The Movement Revisited: A Musical Portrait of Four Icons will be available on vinyl for the first time on January 13th, via Mack Avenue Records. A sweeping four-part suite celebrating the civil rights movement, the album features arrangements for big jazz band, small jazz group, and gospel choir as well as four narrators who convey the pain, pathos, and ultimately hope of the struggle through the words and writings of four iconic figures: the Rev. Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. T
Originally released in 2020, The Movement Revisited is the culmination of a 20-year-long, continuously evolving project. In 1998, a musical commission from the Portland (Maine) Arts Society set in motion what would eventually become a major part of McBride's life's work. The only stipulation for the commission was that it had to include a choir. "At that time, I called it a musical portrait of the Civil Rights Movement," McBride says. "I thought about those times and decided that rather than try to write a history of the movement, I wanted to evoke its spirit and feeling."
"Bassist Christian McBride has composed and produced an epic, dramatic work paying tribute to four icons of
Black history…" — Stereogum
"The suite… mixes hard-nosed small-group playing, soaring big-band orchestration, spoken readings from figures like Sonia Sanchez and Wendell Pierce, and choral singing." — The New York Times
The Movement Revisited: A Musical Portrait of Four Icons Tracklist:
01. Overture / The Movement Revisited
02. Sister Rosa - Prologue
03. Sister Rosa
04. Rosa Introduces Malcolm
05.
Brother Malcolm - Prologue
06.
Brother Malcolm
07. Malcolm Introduces Ali
08. Ali Speaks
09. Rumble in the Jungle
10. Rosa Introduces MLK
11. Soldiers (I Have a Dream)
12. A View from the Mountaintop
13. Apotheosis: November 4th, 2008
Christian McBride tour dates:
01/13 - Fort Lauderdale, FL - Blue Note at Sea +
02/02 - Northridge, CA - The
Soraya Valley Performing Arts Center *
02/03 - Scottsdale, AZ - Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts ~
02/11 - St. Augustine, FL - Fort Mose Historic
State Park ~
02/17 - Toronto, ON - Meridian Hall *
02/24 - Fort Collins, CO - The Lincoln Center ~
02/25 - Salt Lake City - UT - Capitol Theatre ~
02/26 - Boulder, CO - Boulder Theater ~
03/03 - Houston, TX - Wortham Theater Center ~
03/04 - San Antonio, TX - Tobin Center for the Performing Arts ~
03/21 - Minneapolis, MN - Dakota ~
03/22 - Minneapolis, MN - Dakota ~
03/23 - Chicago, IL - Constellation ~
03/24 - Detroit, MI - Orchestra Hall ~
03/28 - Geneva, NY - Smith Center for the Arts ~
03/29 - Northampton, MA - BOMBYX Center for Arts and Equity ~
03/30 - Knoxville, TN - Big Ears Festival 2023 ~
03/30 - Wilmington, DE - Arden Gild Hall ~
03/31 - Richmond, VA - Modlin Center for the Arts ~
04/22 - Stockholm, Sweden - Fasching ^
04/29 - Irvine, CA - Irvine Barclay Theatre ~
+Christian McBride & Inside Straight
* The Movement Revisited
~ Christian McBride's New Jawn
^ solo with Bohuslän Big Band
