a special message from NJPAC CEO John Schreiber

Celebrating NJPAC’s Jazz Advisor on the occasion of his 11th GRAMMY win

Christian McBride is one of my favorite people in the world.

A musical multi-hyphenate of the first order, Christian is considered by those who know best to be our finest living jazz bassist.

He’s a bandleader, a composer, a podcaster, a producer, an educator and, above all else, a Grade A human being.

He’s also NJPAC’s Jazz Advisor, a beloved masterclass teacher for our students, and an active member of the Arts Center’s Board of Directors.

Christian has that rare combination of enormous talent and great kindness that makes him a joy to hang out with — and for countless musicians and young people, an invaluable mentor.

I met Christian almost 40 years ago, when I was producing the Mellon Jazz Festival in Philadelphia. He was only 15 years old, but already playing at a level that caught the attention of jazz masters decades older.

Christian grew up in Philly and attended the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts (which he attended, remarkably, at the same time as Questlove and Black Thought of The Roots, as well as the members of the vocal supergroup Boyz II Men).

The 1988 Mellon Jazz Festival was dedicated to trumpet genius Dizzy Gillespie. We assembled a group of local student musicians to play at a press conference announcing the festival, which Dizzy attended. Christian was the bass player in the high school band.

I wasn’t the only one impressed when that band played. Dizzy, who had ears like vacuum cleaners, shoved me in the ribs and asked: “Who’s the bass player?”

When Christian and I reminisced about this recently, he recalled:

“I wanted to say hello to Dizzy so badly, but there were so many reporters and this entourage around him. I didn’t think I’d get the chance. But after everyone left, Dizzy hung around … so I came up to him and shook his hand. And he said ‘Oh! You were that kid playing bass!’ And then he said — I’ll never forget this – ‘I wish I had my trumpet, I would have jammed with you.’ That just made me so happy, you know?”

“And I asked him about how he met Charlie Parker, and he gave me all these beautiful, specific details about meeting Charlie in Kansas City in the 1940s.”

What I love about this story is that it encapsulates two of Christian’s special qualities: His deep knowledge of jazz history, and his ability to forge an instant connection with just about anyone. Those attributes would be notable in an adult; in a high schooler, they were astonishing.

Christian had the advantage of being born into music; his father is bassist Lee Smith. Christian told me he first decided to take up the electric bass after tagging along with his Dad to the Atlantic City Jazz Festival in 1980, when Dizzy, Mel Torme and Dexter Gordon were all on the bill.

According to Christian: “After hearing those heroes, I think I was the only nine-year-old who knew what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.”

He met Wynton Marsalis at a Mellon Jazz Festival masterclass. At the class, when Wynton asked him to play something, Christian launched into one of Wynton’s own compositions, “Skain’s Domain,” from the album J. Mood.

“He was shocked — and impressed that I actually did know the music. He invited me to sit in with his band at the Academy of Music a couple weeks later … and it was kind of like a domino effect after that,” Christian recalls.

He later met jazz greats Terrence Blanchard, Donald Harrison and Branford Marsalis, all of whom greeted him with: “I heard about you from Wynton!”

In pursuit of meeting players who inspired him, Christian ended up attending Juilliard — even though, at the time, Juilliard didn’t have a jazz program.

“I realized pretty quickly that all my jazz heroes lived in New York City. Even though Philly’s not that far away, in terms of opportunities — it could have been another universe,” Christian says.

The move to the Big Apple paid off.

“Bobby Watson was another musician I’d had a chance to meet at a masterclass. He found out I was in New York. The second week of school, he physically came out to Juilliard and said: ‘Hey, I’ve got a gig next weekend at Birdland. You want to make it?’ So I played my first gig in New York in September of 1989. I was 17, and I’m there on stage with James Williams on piano and Victor Lewis on drums. Just the week before, I had been listening to their records. It was a dream come true.”

The dream came true because Christian, as he put it, “did do his homework,” practicing relentlessly. He said the first time he heard one of his eventual mentors, the great jazz bassist Ray Brown perform, “it was like my brain cracked open.” He hurried home and practiced in front of a mirror to ensure his hands were positioned on his instrument as Brown’s had been.

But it’s his ability to connect, to communicate and collaborate with so many people that has made Christian’s career extraordinary.

He’s performed on more than 400 albums. In addition to the five different bands he leads himself, he’s been part of jazz all-star groups like SuperBass and Five Peace Band, held the position of Creative Chair for Jazz with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and was selected by renowned impresario George Wein to succeed him as Artistic Director of the Newport Jazz Festival.

(That gig, Christian recalls, included being summoned to George’s apartment to play Lester Young tunes on Spotify for him, as George never mastered streaming technology.)

As Wynton Marsalis prepares to step down as Managing and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Christian’s name is on everyone’s lips as a possible successor. (“A lot of people are on standby,” Christian demurs.)

Herbie Hancock, Diana Krall, Chick Corea, Sting, Paul McCartney, Celine Dion, Isaac Hayes, The Roots, Queen Latifah, Kathleen Battle, Renee Fleming, Carly Simon, Bruce Hornsby and James Brown are a handful of the boldfaced names who have performed and recorded with Christian.

Let’s not forget to add to that list the New Jersey Symphony, with whom Christian will be performing his first classical composition here at NJPAC next season.

Sometimes jazz can be an intimidating listen for people not familiar with it, but I can’t imagine anyone less intimidating than Christian. He welcomes everyone into the music. When he performs with other artists, in other genres, he always makes new friends for jazz.

You can hear some of those friends on his latest recording, made with his big band, for which Christian just won his eleventh GRAMMY® Award earlier this month: Without Further Ado, Vol. 1.

The record features a whole group of high-profile collaborators: Dianne Reeves, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition winner Samara Joy — and, on the opening track, a blistering take on “Murder by Numbers,” Sting and Andy Summers, two-thirds of the legendary English rock band The Police.

I asked Christian what his secret was for connecting with so many different people, so authentically, in so many different ways.

“I just try to stay curious,” he said. “If you’re able to stay open, stay curious, you can be a contributing member of any community.”