Jazz Articles about Christian McBride

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Christian McBride: Live at Tonic

by C. Michael Bailey
May 24, 2006

Bassist Christian McBride detonated a funkfest in New York City last year and documented it digitally on Live at Tonic. This three-CD set is filled to the brim with music, each disc clocking in at greater than an hour. The problem is there exists a certain 1970s self indulgence on two of the three discs. But that's okay, because the first disc is a crackerjack, the best funk workout since Miles' Agharta (Columbia, 1975).

The first CD contains ...

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Christian McBride Throws Down

by Chris M. Slawecki
May 23, 2006

Philadelphia native Christian McBride stands among contemporary music's heaviest musicians. That's no reflection of McBride's physical stature, or even of his cavernous speaking voice. It is descriptive of his powerful, profoundly resonant voice on acoustic and electric bass. It almost certainly applies to his formidable body of work, which includes seven albums as a leader and session work with legends inside (Jimmy Smith, McCoy Tyner) and outside (Kathleen Battle, Sting) the world of jazz, all of which seems to have ...

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Christian McBride: Live At Tonic

by David Miller
May 21, 2006

Talk about bringin' da funk. Christian McBride and his ensemble of regular band members and special guests brought their A game to Tonic on January 3 and 4, 2005. McBride, well known for his jazz chops and frequent collaborations with Pat Metheny and Chick Corea (among others), has never been one to shy away from his influences. Live at Tonic, a three-disc collection recorded at the downtown New York nightspot, is at its heart a funk album, at times chugging ...

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Christian McBride Band at Chicago Symphony Center

by Paul Olson
May 18, 2006

Christian McBride Band Symphony Center, Chicago May 12, 2006It couldn't be done. There was no way that bassist/bandleader Christian McBride could be as tautly, thrillingly funky in the august setting of Chicago's Symphony Hall as he was last year in New York's tiny, olfactorily dubious Tonic nightclub. I wasn't at McBride's two-night, January 2005 stand at Tonic, but the sonic evidence of those evenings is available on the new three-CD Ropeadope Live at Tonic album, ...

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Christian McBride: Live at Tonic

by John Kelman
May 17, 2006

Given jazz's spontaneous nature, it's often best experienced live. Jazz meccas like New York offer an additional opportunity to experience one-off events where guests sit in with a club's featured artist. For those of us living in cities where this is not such a common occurrence, albums like Live at Tonic are especially important.

Christian McBride's bread and butter is primarily mainstream jazz, as featured on nearly 300 recordings. But since A Family Affair (Verve, 1996), the bassist's own records ...

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Chick Corea / Steve Gadd / Christian McBride: Super Trio

by John Kelman
May 1, 2006

He may be in his mid-sixties, but pianist Chick Corea hasn't slowed down in the least. In the past five years there's been a monumental three-week run at New York's Blue Note, focusing a bright light on acoustic ensembles past and present and beautifully documented on the ten-DVD set Rendezvous in New York (Image Entertainment, 2005). Corea re-formed his powerhouse Elektric Band for an album--To the Stars (Stretch, 2004)--and tour. He reunited with members of Paco de Lucia's band for ...

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Third Annual Philly All-Star Night at the Kimmel Center

by Victor L. Schermer
November 26, 2005

Kimmel Center for the Peforming Arts Verizon Hall Philadelphia, PA November 18, 2005This concert maintained the particular focus on Philadelphia musicians of the Mellon Jazz Festival at the Kimmel. Odean Pope is a Philadelphia legend, who worked with John Coltrane, Max Roach and many other jazz masters. His saxophone choir members mostly hail from Philadelphia. Ravi Coltrane's father is from Philly, and Ravi has maintained that connection. McBride is a Philadelphia native who ...