Christian McBride – New Jawn (CD)
Product Details
Philly-bred and deeply schooled, Christian McBride has spent decades as one of jazz's most in-demand bassists, logging sessions and stages with everyone from Freddie Hubbard to Pat Metheny. The chordless format here, no piano, no guitar, is a deliberate choice that opens up wide harmonic space, pushing the conversation between horn and bass into territory that owes as much to the Blue Note hard bop tradition as it does to the anything-goes spirit of the avant-garde.
Sure, Christian McBride could have called his new ensemble the Christian McBride Quartet or the Christian McBride Group, or any number of other, somewhat more straitlaced variations on that basic theme. But this new chordless quartet - with trumpeter Josh Evans, saxophonist Marcus Strickland, and drummer Nasheet Waits - arrives with a bit too much grit under it's fingernails to warrant a name quite that buttoned up. If there's one thing the acclaimed bassist knows, it's that when it comes to grit there's no better resource to draw from than his own hometown, Philadelphia. So, McBride turned to one of the city's most beloved colloquialisms to christen his latest project, Christian McBride's New Jawn ("All-purpose term for a person, place or thing"). On the band's eponymous debut, these four stellar musicians ably walk the razor's edge between thrilling virtuosity and gut-punch instinctiveness.
Tracklist
UPC: 673203113329
Label: Mack Avenue Records
Release Date: 10.26.18
Format: CD