Lost in Jersey
So close to NYC, New Jersey is a melting pot of creativity, ambition, and culture. Everyone has a Jersey story and on Lost in Jersey, we’re here to share them with you.
Lost in Jersey
Christian McBride's Road to Jersey
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Nine-time Grammy winner Christian McBride says life is jazz—part preparation, part improvisation, and pure rhythm. In this conversation, the bassist, composer, and longtime NJPAC Jazz Advisor shows how listening deeply, reacting honestly, and staying curious keep his music (and life) in time. We discuss the surprising bass that travels the world with him, the art of arranging compositions for singers, and the balance between leading big bands and blending in with small ensembles.
McBride shares the making of his new album, Without Further Ado, Vol. 1—a project that captures live energy across studios in New York, L.A., and London—and previews this year’s TD James Moody Jazz Festival. Get tickets to see Christian McBride's Big Band on November 21st, featuring Andra Day, José James, Ledisi, and more.
It’s a masterclass in rhythm, resilience, and what it really means to find your groove.
Book your jazz vacation cruise with Christian at McBridesWorldatSea.com
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Welcoming Christian McBride
SPEAKER_00Hey, what's good?
SPEAKER_02The man of the hour. The legend, Mr. McBride.
SPEAKER_00I don't know about all that.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, I mean I'm pretty sure.
SPEAKER_00It's a pleasure.
SPEAKER_02You are a nine-time Grammy winner. It was fun before interviewing you for both of us to go and listen to music from all of your different projects and big band and small groups. And it was really fun to hear all the different collaborations that you've done.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. I hope you enjoyed it at least most of what you heard.
SPEAKER_03All of it. All
Practicing, Improvising, And Life As Jazz
SPEAKER_03of it. I was like trying to get to the bottom of how I think you have done 16 albums and you've had done about 300 plus. Uh, you were a side man on it. How we can't get through it all, but everything that we've heard is incredible. So I can't believe how much you have done. One thing I want to point out though is I'm a rookie. I've paid the bass clarinet like for two years in junior high school. So when I was watching the tiny dust concert online, your bass clarinet or clo clarinet player stood out to me. I was like, oh, he's so good. Yes, I agree. But Rachel is a classical violinist.
SPEAKER_02Played Suzuki method since I was three and a half. Well, that's how I was trained.
SPEAKER_00Amazing have a great ear.
SPEAKER_02I would say though, the bummer about that was, you know, once I got to college and played, I played in the symphony there for a year. And then I said, I I really don't want to do this anymore. Classical. So I had friends who were doing uh bands. So I joined bands. They would have to play it for me what they wanted me to play, play it on the keyboard, and then I'd play it fine for them. But I was not great at like playing the key of C. Or I was like, no, that my brain can't do that on the fly.
SPEAKER_00It's totally fine because the real truth is you can't get better at anything unless you practice, no matter what endeavor it is. You know?
SPEAKER_03That's so true. On every little thing, I was at a wedding this weekend and I saw this woman across the way that wasn't talking to anyone. And I went over there and I talked to her and I told her that I I used to be like the like her. And I said, But ever since we started doing this podcast over we're over like almost 150 episodes, you have worked the muscle of talking to people. The conversation might stall, but you know how to go to the next level. And I'm imagining that that's kind of the art form in some way with everything, such as with music, I would assume.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. That's correct.
SPEAKER_03It's like a little bit of a jazz event, you know, it's like uh improv improvising.
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, all of life is improvisation. I mean, you don't really know what you're gonna do. I mean, you can plan, but something will happen where you'll have to react a certain way. And how you react is based upon what you've studied, what you've learned, what you've practiced, you know. Therefore, your reaction will be more informed, more educated. So I like to say life in general is jazz.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I like it. It is that makes sense to me. Well, that's a ca kind of a curious thing. I mean, we want to get into your background, but uh since you said that, I mean, I know that you do improv improvise, but do you think ahead?
Structure Behind Great Solos
SPEAKER_03Do you plan ahead when you're playing?
SPEAKER_00Well, you have to, because when you are playing a song and you're improvising, you're improvising within a structure that involves certain chords, a certain number of bars, you know. So it's not just free form, play whatever you want. You're playing something based on the form, the structure, and the chords. You know, in that sense, yes, you most certainly have to think ahead.
SPEAKER_03Right. It's like a conversation, just like, for example, this podcast. We kind of have a structure. We know we're gonna talk about a few things. We know the overarching concept is that we're gonna talk about some New Jersey, we're gonna talk about your your background, we're gonna talk about your journey and you know, what you're doing next. It because it's kind of all it is a conversation jazz, right?
SPEAKER_00That's correct.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Arranging For Voices And Trust
SPEAKER_02You also do arranging and composing, and we've been listening to the big band album that's out now. That's without further ado, part one. It's so good. When you're arranging certain things that have a vocalist, do you feel you're looking at that and arranging differently than when you don't have a vocalist, or are you treating horns like a vocalist because they have a melody?
SPEAKER_00Well, uh, with vocalists, it's very important for that vocalist to feel comfortable. I know a lot of arrangers who feel that their arrangement is the most important thing. Like it is important for the vocalist to learn the arrangement of that person. I'm the other way around. I want my arrangement to fit the vocalist. So I usually talk to anyone I'm writing for. It's like, hey, what kind of vibe are you looking for? You know, how can my arrangement serve you? Because for me, it's sort of is practical. If the vocalist knows that the arranger wants to serve them, they'll trust me and they'll they'll want to work with me again and again and again. Absolutely. Because they know that I'll listen. You know?
SPEAKER_02You'll listen, they'll feel comfortable with you.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Now, I I think with uh with horn players, all of this varies. You know, you you have um certain horn players who do like a particular thing played behind them, uh, some are more freewheeling. Same thing with vocalists. Uh I do find that most of the time vocalists like to have a very specific thing behind them so they can feel comfortable so they can interpret the song the way they want to interpret it. But then you have somebody like Diane Reeves, who is such a master of what she does. She won't say this, but her talent says, You can do whatever you want behind me.
SPEAKER_02I got this.
SPEAKER_00I can hear it. I got this. You can't stump me. And like she's one of the only vocalists I know who's who's that
The Making Of Without Further Ado
SPEAKER_00fearless and who's that who's that capable.
SPEAKER_02I listened to that song multiple times. I was like, oof, she takes you places.
SPEAKER_03Yes, she's like, she does. Well, that whole album is it, I was telling Rachel, it's like it it's a throwback, so much like as a lot of jazz is, but you really it transports you back in time, but in a fresh way. And I was saying that for some a lot of people, you know, there's jazz periods of their life that they really got immersed in jazz and they were like listening to, you know, all the greats, mingas, you know, uh Coltrane, everything, you know, Dexter Gordon, whatever it may be, they were just immersed in it. And then it kind of a season passes, right? That you're not maybe listening to it as much as you used to. And then when I listened to this album, all of a sudden I was like, you know, I forgot, you know, I forgot, and bring it back, bring it back. And it really had that in a fresh way.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you. Well, it's it it took over two years in total to make the album. As you may have noticed, the album is called Um, Without Further Ado, Volume One.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00Which would imply that there's a volume two. So we actually wound up recording both volumes over that two plus year span. When you start trying to get a bunch of vocalists who live in various different places, uh scheduling can be an absolute nightmare.
NJPAC, Festivals, And Guests
SPEAKER_00So uh some of the vocalists were live with us in the studio in New York, some overdubbed their parts in LA and England, and we had to send the tracks here and send them there, and you know, so the origin story of how this record came about was uh directly related to my involvement with NJPack.
SPEAKER_03We interviewed the president of NJPack recently, was it he talked about you?
SPEAKER_00Oh, John is John is my man.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he said he just saw you and you're a little kid in Philly.
SPEAKER_00That's correct.
SPEAKER_03He said, Who's that guy up there? You're a prodigy.
SPEAKER_00I'm uh I'm grateful for his friendship and and to have known him for more than half of my life. When he became the CEO of NJ Pack, he immediately called me and said, uh, I would like a jazz advisor here. Uh-huh. And uh I think you're the guy for that role. So since then, for our annual gala, my big band serves as the house band. And we've invited all of these incredible vocalists to come and perform either at the gala or one of the TD James Moody Jazz Festival concerts. So since 2012, I've had to write numerous big band arrangements for all of these singers that are coming with the big band. Oh but the flip side of that is that these arrangements only get played once. We play them at the gallery and that's it, you know. And so I just noticed that I just kept this growing stack of music that I had written through the years for these NJ Pack gallons, and I thought, it's really a shame that these are going to waste, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh I should record these. And so that that's what you hear mostly.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's
Band Leadership From The Bass
SPEAKER_03so great.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03What a good origin story. At the festival that's coming up, the the Moody Festival, that you're going to be having your 17 piece band there. Is that correct? With special guests singing, are you going to be singing off of this album or are you going to be doing more new arrangements?
SPEAKER_00Well, uh uh a little bit of both. So the the special guest that will be with my band this year, forgive me for not knowing the date, I think it's November 21st.
SPEAKER_02It's November 21st.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You're welcome.
SPEAKER_00Uh the special guest will be Andrew Day, Jose James, and Leticy. Jose James, of course, is on the new album. He sings. So I'm sure we're going to be doing that. Umrea, we we've worked together in the past, but I haven't written any big band arrangements for her. So this is going to be uh a really fun maiden voyage for the both of us.
SPEAKER_03No, she's powerhouse.
SPEAKER_00She's got a lot of fun. Yeah. Now, Let us see, even though she's not on my new album, I'm on her new album, which is a big band record. It's a tribute to Dinah Washington. And uh her album was released two weeks after mine. And so uh I produced it, I arranged it, I did all of the orchestrations. So we're going to be playing some music from her new album, which I arranged. So uh and I I can't wait for that also.
SPEAKER_03That'll be a blast. I mean, 17 people, 17, you know, I'm sure, and more are involved in this. That's a big uh group to try to coordinate.
SPEAKER_00It must be my my band members live in New York. And and and you know, we've been playing together now for a good 15 years almost. Uh the the core of the band has been together for 15 years. So we know each other extremely well.
SPEAKER_02So you probably have a shorthand. I I know that just playing with my band over the years, uh, my friend Deb is the one who sort of runs it. She plays piano, she sings, and she plays guitar. She'll just look at me and I'll be like, oh, I know what I mean.
SPEAKER_00You know what that means.
SPEAKER_02I know, I know. I get to sweat. I start sweating. I'm like, oh, okay, okay, give me another shot. Well, you know, that's interesting. Is Deb considered the lead of the band? Is she like the kind of the the director? Oh, yeah, because she's a musical genius. Like she can hear, we'll be playing a rock song, and and she always adds violin in and she totally arranges everything. The bassist or guitarist will play one note that is just not right, and she'll say, Stop, you
Finding The Upright Bass
SPEAKER_02play that line again. And it she's right every time. She she hears it.
SPEAKER_03Well, that's the thing though, is it's usually the sing the lead singer or somebody that's the head of the band, and you're the bassist, and you're you're the head that you're usually kind of in not. How did that come about? How did you rise to the place where you are now the you are the heartbeat, you are the conductor of the bands?
SPEAKER_00Well, I gotta tell you, the bass player and the drummer have always been the rulers of the band. Don't let anyone ever tell you any different.
SPEAKER_02It's very true. Because if we're not following the bass line or the drums, we're off and it's over.
SPEAKER_03So did everybody look to you in the in in the early uh days, look back at you, go, are we doing this right?
SPEAKER_00They're the heartbeat. They're they're the they're the engine, you know. Yeah. And so for any music to be successful, you need the bass and the drums to be one instrument. Um so there's a lot of pressure on the bass and the drums, but at the same token, I think that most band leaders should be they it would be smart for them to be kind to the bass player and the drummer. Because we can we could easily sabotage it if we want to.
SPEAKER_02Oh, we've had the sabotage for fun when the um drummer decides that he's in an excellent mood and just super happy and all of a sudden plays a little bit too fast and we're all just trying to keep up.
SPEAKER_00That can happen, you know. And then you get those band leaders, somebody like uh Betty Carter, rest her soul, you know, she was she was relentless. She was always all over the rhythm section. Yeah. Come on, fellas. You know, you have to follow her heel. That's where she wanted the time, you know. I I think just for me, there's a notion that it's rare that the bass player is the band leader, but uh there's always been a lot of great bass playing band leaders. You know, you mentioned Charles Mingus earlier, probably the most popular one. But you've had Ray Brown, you've had Jaco Pastores, you've had Marcus Miller, Stanley Clark, who's coming to T. D. James Moody Festival this year. All kinds of great bass playing band leaders. So uh I'm just one of many, you know.
SPEAKER_02You grew up in a musical family, right? I mean, you're you're tell us about that. You have bass players in your family.
SPEAKER_00Yep, my dad and my great uncle.
Touring With A Flyaway Bass
SPEAKER_00So uh I'm in the family business.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I started playing the electric bass when I was nine and started playing the upright bass when I was eleven.
SPEAKER_02Did you ever like rebel and want to say, No, I don't want the bass, I want something else, or you know, you just loved it.
SPEAKER_00I mean, what when I got to middle school and had to play in the school orchestra, I ironically did not pick the double bass. I wanted to try the trombone because my musical hero already was James Brown, and some of my favorite moments on James Brown's records were the trombone solos of Fred Wesley. Well, I wanted to try to play trombone like Fred Wesley. Uh, but when it became painfully obvious rather quickly that I had no talent for the trombone, uh, the brass instructor said, Well, you play the electric bass, right? I said, Yes. He said, Well, why don't why don't you play the upright bass? I went, uh, I don't know, I don't want to play the upright bass. He says, Well, you know, g give me the trombone. You should try the you should try the bass. You know. So uh he nicely coaxed the trombone out of my hand, and I kind of, you know, sulking, went into the bass room, and then it it took a it took a while, but it grew on me and I I came to love it.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's it's so great to hear that because it's always so interesting when you meet someone so talented at an instrument and you wonder, you know, were they always just attached to that instrument? Did they try anything else? Like how did this happen where it's like you meet your soulmate of an instrument and and why why that one? Right. You know? It wasn't love at first sight.
SPEAKER_00Not really. Yeah, you know, but you know, because I thought the electric bass was the coolest instrument in the world, you know, just playing the bass guitar, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I thought one day I would get a gig with James Brown or Michael Jackson or somebody like that. You know. Um and you can't do that with an upright bass, you know. So uh when I started playing the upright bass, you know, the like I said, it it it took a minute, but then my great uncle said, uh, well, now that you're playing the upright bass, I got something for you. So I went over to his his house and uh he had a big, huge stack of jazz albums waiting for me. Oh and uh, you know, I was 11 years old, so my initial reaction was kind of like, oh no.
SPEAKER_03Well, that's true. You're like, why do I have this? This is gonna be intense. It's like homework here.
SPEAKER_00I gotta look at the jazz albums. Oh, man. You know, but the way he presented it to me, uh, I was deeply in love with jazz by the end of that visit. And I had always associated, probably because of him, I had always associated the upright bass with jazz. And then I realized after that visit that not only was jazz really good music, but it was really
Leaving Juilliard For The Road
SPEAKER_00cool. You know, like because my great uncle is cool, you know, like everything about him, the way he walks, the way he talks, his his mannerisms, and I just thought, well, if jazz makes him that cool, then I want to be cool too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. It is cool. It's like a random question about the the instrument because I I obviously I played in orchestras growing up for so long. And it's such a massive, like physically big instrument. And you travel so much and you play everywhere. Do you bring your bass with you everywhere? Or do you have like a favorite bow that you bring instead that you'll borrow other people's bases?
SPEAKER_00What I use now is it's called a uh flyaway bass. Because of the way traveling has been over the last uh, I would say, particularly in the last 15 years, the restrictions that keep coming up on like what you can bring and what you can't, they just made it virtually impossible for musicians to travel with their own instruments anymore. Uh I can remember my very first tour in 1990. I mean, you know, our drummer brought his entire six-piece drum kit, two cases. I had my bass in one of the big, you know, fiberglass coffins that we used to pull. And uh our saxophone player had his alto saxophone, a soprano saxophone. Like we probably had 20 pieces of luggage between the two of us. Right.
SPEAKER_02Right, right.
SPEAKER_00And uh you can't do that now, obviously. You know, so there was a company in California uh called Lemur, like like the animal Lemur, and they started making bases that come apart.
SPEAKER_02I can't even imagine this.
SPEAKER_00It's an engineering miracle. It is an engineering miracle because it isn't the whole point is like the body and the wood type and the and the sealant and like So Yeah, and and so uh there were a couple of people in around 2007, 2008 that started experimenting with these ways that you could travel with an instrument that comes apart. There was a guy named Charlie Chadwick in Nashville of the Lemer Company in California, and they just had these various prototypes where you could take the you could take the neck off. The as as you well know, being a violinist, the the body of the instrument that that's all wood. That's all pressure on wood. So with the bass, you know how the sound gets from the front to the back is the sound post.
SPEAKER_02Soundposts, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And if there's no pressure on the front of the
Choosing Montclair And New Jersey Life
SPEAKER_00instrument, that sound post is gonna fall.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00And so I thought, well, how can you make a bass that comes apart where you take the bridge off, you take the neck off? There's no pressure on the front, so the soundpiece is gonna fall. So the Lemur Company puts this little tiny thumb tack in the front of the instrument that a little adhesive on the bottom of the soundpost that keeps it from falling when you take the bridge off, you know.
SPEAKER_03Oh that's just such a simple solution that seems credible that it would be that simple.
SPEAKER_00So you could sort of take off the the neck and then you can now the only drawback is that you have to detune the instrument every single time. Oh, of course.
SPEAKER_02Oh, of course. And then so your strings aren't gonna be you have to use oh then retuning and then it is such a pain.
SPEAKER_00It's the worst. Can I say the A word? Yeah, you can. It is such a pain in the ass, you know. But but on the flip side is that I can travel with it. At least I know what I have. You know, it's a full-size upright base, but you just have to take it apart every gig, you know. Uh it has like a little chart inside of the case, you know, so we like IKEA, like how to put it together? We we we start calling it the IKEA base.
SPEAKER_03Oh my god. Oh my gosh. I'm gonna need to go online and see how you have to check that out, Rachel. I well, you what I want to do for the listeners so that they know your journey to New Jersey. I know that you came from Philadelphia originally, then you went to Juilliard for a year. Yes. And you started getting a lot of phone calls to come play gigs and then left Juilliard. Can you tell us about that, you know, and transition that you made there?
SPEAKER_00Sure. Um once I fell in love with jazz, it became obvious that if I wanted to be in that circle with all of these great musicians who I admired on recordings, I had to move to New York because they all lived in New York. Even though Philly is not that far from New York, I just felt that in terms of opportunity of where I wanted to go, it was a completely different universe, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And uh so I could not wait to move to New York City. So I I I went to Juilliard. You know, within that first year, I started playing gigs with the great alto saxophonist Bobby Watson, and I also met my my dear friend Roy Hargrove, and his career started to blossom around the same time. So I finished my my freshman year. I went on the road with Roy Hargrove, and uh, while I was out on the road with Roy, I also got an opportunity to start playing with the legendary Freddie Hubbard. And so it was obvious to me that I was like, well, I'm not gonna be able to do this and school.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I have to make a decision here. So uh, you know, I I had a very difficult conversation with my well, it wasn't a difficult conversation. It was just difficult getting the
How The Studio Scene Changed
SPEAKER_00nerve to tell her that I didn't want to go back to school. Uh but after we had a talk, she was she was very, very, very cool. And um, yeah, I I then just started my career going on the road and playing with all of these musicians who I greatly admired. But specifically moving to New Jersey, you know, I I'd only lived in two places my whole life, Philly and New York City, you know, and I lived in numerous neighborhoods when I lived in New York. Uh I lived in Harlem, I lived in Brooklyn, uh, I lived in on in Murray Hill, I lived on the Upper East Side for uh almost 10 years. And so uh the last place in the world I ever thought I would move to was New Jersey.
SPEAKER_02That's usually what most people say, including what we said before we moved here.
SPEAKER_00Man, I ain't moving to New Jersey, man. Like people who moved to New Jersey, I thought I was like, you know, it's like, you know, they can't handle the city, you know. Uh they're soft, you know, you know, they want to start their old corny family life with the house and the, you know, the car and the kids.
SPEAKER_03They need trees and why. You know, I tell a funny story about that because I thought the exact same thing. Yeah. But when I when I moved out here and I was still, you know, like, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to hack it. I was had my kids in a preschool and I was waiting in line to pick up my kid, and there was a woman that was checking her, like de-enrolling her child. She said, she's like, we're moving back to the city, we just can't do it. And all of a sudden I was like, this is a challenge.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_03That was a throwdown for you. We you're weak, weak woman going back to the city. I am gonna dig it out. It was like I flipped it, you know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And and and so uh, yeah, I I had no plans ever to, you know, I I thought of New Jersey as one long bridge between New York and Philly.
SPEAKER_02I'm sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And um I I had deep respect for Newark.
Building The Next Generation: Jazz House Kids
SPEAKER_00I knew a lot of I knew a lot of people in in Montclair, I knew a lot of people in Teaneck and Inglewood, West New York, but you know, we hawking, but I'm not, I'm not moving there, you know. And and then I met Melissa, my wife Melissa.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And uh when we started dating, she lived in West Orange. And I remember going to visit her a couple of times, and you know, I'd go to Port Authority, somewhere I'd never really had any real reason to go to.
SPEAKER_02It's not the nicest place in the world.
SPEAKER_00Not the nicest place. No. And so I would go to visit her. I'll take the bus from Port Authority, and I would think, well, I now I know I'm not moving to New Jersey. This this bus situation.
SPEAKER_02Just sealed the deal. I am not coming. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03This is crazy.
SPEAKER_00But then, you know, Melissa and I, I fell in love, and you know, we decided to get engaged, and we thought, uh, okay, well, how are we gonna handle this uh this living thing? Like it it really it really became an issue, you know. She said, Well, she said, I I hate New York. I said, Well, I hate New Jersey, you know. And uh she said, Well, we gotta figure this out, you know.
SPEAKER_02That'd be a good jazz song. I hate New York and I hate New Jersey. Okay, yeah, let's do that. Let's fight.
SPEAKER_00And, you know, some some pragmatism came into play. I thought, well, you know, seriously, like she had a really nice house in West Orange. And even though I had a very nice, I had a two-bedroom, two-bathroom in Manhattan. Wow. And uh, but still, like, I don't, I don't want to get married and live there. Okay, let me be real. You know, for the kind of space that we would want, it's not gonna happen in New York. So I thought, well, okay, I can't believe I'm saying this. Can't believe it. Okay, I'll come to New Jersey, but we gotta find somewhere really cool, you know. And uh we settled on Montclair because almost every musician I knew, a lot of musicians who I was I was particularly close with uh lived in Montclair. And they say, hey man, we felt the same way you did, and we don't regret living in Montclair. And I have to say, it has been exactly it's been 20 years and two months since Melissa and I moved to Montclair. And when I come into Manhattan now, my very first thought is my exit route.
SPEAKER_02I have the same thing now. I used to really be sad to, you know, I was so sad to leave the city too. But when I go in, I'm excited to be there, but I am very excited thinking at the end of the day I'm gonna be back here.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Yep.
SPEAKER_03You know, I'm curious about that though. Do you still feel like when you go to the city, I'm sure you go there to the studios and have, you know, a lot of sessions in the city, right? Is that where you do most of your jazz sessions? Does it feel like it used to, or has it changed? And is that also changed?
SPEAKER_00Yes,
Arts As Community Power
SPEAKER_00it's that that part has changed also because when I first started doing a lot of recording sessions in the early 90s, obviously there was still a lot of big record labels. You know, you had Burb, you had Blue Note, you had RCA, you had Arista, uh, you had uh Electra, Atlantic, uh all and a lot of independent labels. Obviously, this was before streaming and YouTube and all that kind of stuff. I was averaging 15, 20 albums a year. So I was in the studio all the time. And when you when you have that sort of studio life, um now what I'm describing was nothing compared to what the the generations before me did. I mean, they were probably playing on 15, 20 albums a week.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's nuts.
SPEAKER_00I don't spend as much time in the studio as I used to. I mean, the way it happens now, a lot of people have home studios. There's a lot of small studios. So like somebody will send me a track and say, hey, can you put a bass part on this track? And you know, I'll go to somebody's house or record it in my basement, you know. So that's that's that's the studio life now, you know.
SPEAKER_02Is it I was gonna ask you that when you're talking about the big band recording, is that doesn't that was different? Doesn't it? I know, but you were saying some tracks were laid down, like the vocals were laid down separately. But like, doesn't that feel so different when you're everyone is in the studio versus then you add it later? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh, absolutely. You you prefer it to be in person, but yeah, you know sometimes it works out where. You just can't be there
Album, Festival, And Cruise Invitation
SPEAKER_00in person. Piece it all together. Yeah. You just you you piece it all together and the musicianship of that particular person will make it feel like that they were there. So it it works out. You know, to but to answer your question about you know it being different now, if you talk to some young musician who's 24, 25 years old, I'm sure they will tell you things are great. I got my own scene that I'm working with now, you know. So like um it's all about perspective, you know, because I look at like this young musician, like, you know, somebody like uh Julius Rodriguez, who's uh an incredible young musician, he'll never see the kind of scene that I came up in, you know, playing in studios a couple of times a week, or uh going to Bradley's or Sweet Basil or the Village Gate, you know, but he's got his own clubs that he's going to that I probably won't go to, you know.
SPEAKER_03That's true. That's true. Yeah. Well, so here in New Jersey, you have you're part of the uh Jazz House Kids. Your your wife Melissa started that here. I think it what year was that, like 2002? Or it's been a while.
SPEAKER_01Correct.
SPEAKER_03And it is bringing up a whole new generation. And the kids that go there, they are so talented. It's amazing what you you both have done for the you know up and coming generation. Is that you're like the artistic director, I believe, correct? Right? How do you feel uh about seeing this next generation and without them being able to be part of that past? Do you feel like there's a a different style they're bringing forward, or do you do you feel like there's something new breaking out?
SPEAKER_00I don't even think I don't know if we think about what kind of style they bring. What's most important for us is to see that they have this dream of playing music and they can do it. Because the reason why Jazz House Kids started in the first place is because of this vision Melissa had when she got called to do a masterclass for some elementary school kids in Newark. And, you know, there's no tougher crowd in the world than elementary school kids. Oh and uh she fell in love with them, they fell in love with her, as has always been the case in America. A lot of public schools lost all of their arts funding. And if you wanted to play music and you were in a community of lesser means, chances are you wouldn't be able to play it. Your school either didn't have a music program, or you know, they got rid of their music program, or if they had a music program, the instruments were probably in poor condition. Um, you probably didn't have a lot of music to choose from. There might not have been an orchestra, you know, just a small, you know, a smattering of other kids who wanted to play music. So uh Melissa took it upon herself, like, well, I'm going to create something that kids can have so they can learn about this great American art form and do something other than just be out on the street. And, you know, to see what Jazz House Kids has accomplished from that time up until now, I applaud Melissa every single day for creating this. You know, and to see that some of the young leaders in jazz right now came out of our program, you know, Zohar and Adam, Isaiah J. Thompson, Emmett Cohen, Zoe Abadia, Kaylin Cardello, uh I mean, it's it's incredible who is out there right now who has come through our program.
SPEAKER_03Do the the people that come through your program, are they usually local people in New Jersey or do they come from other places?
SPEAKER_00Throughout the school year, yes. But we have a summer program. Yeah, and the summer program, we get kids from all over the world. We've had kids from uh South America. We have a uh an exchange program with uh organization in London called Tomorrow's Warriors, uh, which is Jazz House Kids and Tomorrow's Warriors does a similar thing. So we've sent some of our kids to London, they've sent some of our kids over to over to Montclair.
SPEAKER_03So that's cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Is it hard to get in? Is there like a audition process? You could just if you want to do it, you can just come.
SPEAKER_00Please, just come. That's how we created it. No, no, I mean, doesn't doesn't matter what how much money you have. We we just need to know that you have some desire. We'll get you.
SPEAKER_03That's amazing. That's amazing. And it can be a beginner level as well. Like you could Okay, that's great. That's great. What is the youngest students that are there?
SPEAKER_00Right now, I'm not sure, but I'm guessing it's probably either nine or ten. We had them as early as four at one point. We had a program that we were doing with uh Jazz and Lincoln Center. What was it called? The uh the Bebop babies or something like that? Um that that programs, because we like I said, we were doing it in in a partnership with with Jazz and Lincoln Center at the same time.
SPEAKER_03Well, the work that you're doing with through the this program here in Montclair and also the work that you're doing at NJPAC, and also it's you know, it's an education system as well there at NJPAC. It seems that you're helping bringing the arts back. You know, if it's not in the schools, it's good to see that there's it's become it's still coming into the community.
SPEAKER_00That's right. That's right. I mean, that's it's necessary. That's what I came up in. When people look at my peers, you know, we were the recipients of a school system and a community that was rich in music education programs. So that's our job to to give it back.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And as you know, I think when we were talking to John at at NJPEC, he was the thing that really stood out is that for me was, you know, take people talk about how you're gonna help the community and how you're gonna r raise a uh a whole city out of, you know, poverty, basically. And who would think it would be the arts that are gonna do it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and this week actually, I have a good friend up um who grew up in West Virginia, Kentucky, that area. She's up for the conference at NJPack right now, um, which is for community healing through art. And it's an amazing conference all week. So she's staying with me to go to that.
SPEAKER_01Nice.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So it's good to see. Well, I highly recommend everyone listen to your latest album. And of course, if you aren't already every day like you are in jazz all the time, if you have by chance, like me, put it on the back burner and have been listening on whatever is the hottest thing on Spotify, there's a reminder that put it back in your rotation, put it back in your rotation with this album and and also come get tickets on November 21st so they could see you.
SPEAKER_00Please.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00Oh, oh, and I I also would like to mention uh that I have my first cruise that sets sail in.
SPEAKER_03I read about that. Explain that. Okay, what is this? I didn't see this. What is it?
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, McBride's World at Sea, which uh is January 20 through 27th, leaves out of Fort Lauderdale and goes to uh Falmouth, Jamaica, and the Cayman Islands. Everybody you can imagine is gonna be performing on this cruise. Angelique Keijo, Let us see, Cecile McLaurin Savant, Samara Joy is gonna be on the cruise, Jose James is gonna be there, uh the legendary comedian George Wallace and uh Alonzo Bowden, my big band, my quintet Inside Straight, my my young band Ursa Major, the Remembering Ray Brown trio with uh Benny Green and Greg Hutchinson, and Melissa is gonna be singing as well.
SPEAKER_02So you just were like, I want to have a really good party, go to some islands and be on a cruise. Let's let's get this, make this happen.
SPEAKER_03It's like a huge yacht you have chartered in some you know, creative manner that you can just exactly right.
SPEAKER_00So make sure everybody goes to McBride's world at sea dot com.
SPEAKER_02Okay. All right, we're putting a link in there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, McBride's a little bit.
SPEAKER_02You can get it, you can get a ticket.
SPEAKER_00And there's a discount that lasts for only two more weeks. So you better jump on it now.
SPEAKER_03All right, all right. We'll we'll we'll highlight that. This is pretty incredible. I know that everyone that you listed is pretty much on your without further ado album. And if you don't know who they are, go to Spotify,
Closing And Credits
SPEAKER_03look up the without further ado album, and click through and follow each one of the people that you have collaborated with because each one is fantastic in their own regard. I I did that. That's what I did.
unknownThat's what I did.
SPEAKER_03Well, it's been such a pleasure to talk to you and to you know know that you know that someone like you is not too far down the block or musical geniuses around.
SPEAKER_00Hopefully, I'll see you guys at the uh 21st.
SPEAKER_03We will. Uh, thank you so much for spending the afternoon with us. We really enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_00Pleasure was all mine. Have a great day.
SPEAKER_03Thank you so much. You too.
SPEAKER_02This podcast was produced by Rachel Martens and Jeanette Afsharian. You can find us on Spotify, iTunes, and BuzzSprout. Thanks for listening. See you next week.
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