[music]

Alison: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. There's a new Jawn from jazz meister Christian McBride's New Jawn. The album Christian McBride's New Jawn - Prime is the sophomore effort from McBride's quartet which features McBride on bass, Josh Evans on trumpet, Marcus Strickland on tenor saxophone and bass clarinet, and Nasheet Waits on drums. This is McBride's 18th album as a band leader. Let's listen to the title track, This is Prime.

[music]

Alison: That's Nasheet Waits on drums. I have my glasses on now, Christian. [laughs] Before Christian McBride hits the road on tour, he's found his way to WNYC studios to join us for a preview listening party for Cris McBride's New Jawn - Prime which is out tomorrow. So nice to see you.

Christian: It's great to see you too. Thanks for having me.

Alison: What kind of conversations did you all have as a group about the creative direction of this album, a follow-up to the last one which was so popular?

Christian: Thank you. We've been a working unit now for about seven years. We don't really have to have a whole lot of discussion at this point when we make a recording or we do a gig or we bring in some new music, whatever it is. When we did this, we had just completed a week-long run at the Village Vanguard. I said, "I want to make a new album. Everybody brings in some new music." We used the Vanguard gig to put it all together.

Alison: When you're at the Vanguard gig, are you testing out, are you working in new tracks and seeing how they fly and what they sound like live?

Christian: Exactly. Yes.

Alison: What's something that you learned from that experience that made its way onto this album?

Christian: Well, the entire process has and this is not just specific to our group, I think this is jazz in general. The process used to be that you took a gig and you go on the road for several weeks, you work out the new music, you get it nice and tight and then you record an album. Somewhere along the way it reversed where you go into the recording studio and you make ''content'' so you could go on the road and tour it. Then when you go on the road and tour it, now the music really starts sounding good. You're like, "We should be making the record now." [laughs]. It was nice to be able to do it the old-school way where you actually work on the music first, get it good and tight, and then you make a recording.

Alison: I would imagine in that order, things start to happen organically.

Christian: Yes, absolutely.

Alison: I think you can hear that.

Christian: Big time. Absolutely. I sometimes feel like you can listen to a recording of a band and-- I don't know. There's something. Even a non-jazz connoisseur, you can listen to it and go, "They just learned that." [laughs]. Then you hear them a year later like, "Oh, they really know it now."

Alison: Right. It's texture and depth and it's in your fingers now.

Christian: Feels lived in.

Alison: All right. Let's just talk about Jawn. Jawn is a very Philly term.

Christian: You used it correctly. Thank you.

Alison: I would love for you to explain the origin of jawn, how it's used in Philadelphia for folks who don't know.

Christian: I don't know the origins of it. I'm pretty sure it was someone mispronouncing something. [laughter]. That's my guess. Jawn in New York is joint. It's the same word. You just substitute. It's a noun. This cup is not a cup. It's a jawn. My hat is not a hat. It's a Jawn. My car is not a car. It's a Jawn. My band is not a band. It's a Jawn. It's just all-purpose word.

Alison: My favorite hotel in Philly, it's, you can have the south jawn room or the north jawn. [laughs].

Christian: Really?

Alison: Yes.

Christian: What hotel is that?

Alison: Hotel Lokal in Fishtown.

Christian: Now they're using it commercially now. Ain't that something always happens? I see it's in Webster's now officially.

Alison: We've made it. It's in Webster's. When we're talking about Philly, our signal gets almost to Philly. A lot of folks listen. Such a great music history. Just in your world, you went to high school with Questlove and Black Thought, Boyz II Men. As a kid, when did you become aware of Philly's music history? Do you remember when it really started to come into your consciousness?

Christian: Probably at some point in-- Let me say that I was always aware that there was great music in Philadelphia but you don't know how great it is until you start to be able to compare it to other cities. Growing up in Philly, I was certainly aware of Motown because my mother raised me in Motown. I knew there was this great music in Detroit. I knew there were a lot of great jazz artists from Detroit. I think it was probably once I moved to New York in the late '80s where I knew that-- I always suspected Philly was extra special but when I left Philly and then I knew it was extra, extra special.

Alison: Can you tell if someone's a Philly jazz musician?

Christian: I think you could at one time. I think that once the internet developed and the world got much smaller and you can instantaneously see what someone is doing on the West Coast or in Europe, or in Asia. There was a lot of myth and a lot of guessing, and a lot of waiting before the internet which was actually in a way quite creative. You weren't quite sure of what [unintelligible 00:06:47] in Detroit or Chicago were doing until the record came out. I think Philly has always had this really cool mix of R&B. Definitely a lot of R&B, Rock, Swing Jazz. Philly also has a legendary avant-garde scene. A lot of the [unintelligible 00:07:09] were based there, still are. It's a mashup of a whole lot of good things.

Alison: My guess is Christian McBride, the new album is out tomorrow, Christian McBride's New Jawn - Prime. That track Prime was written by, composed by Marcus Strickland, your saxophonist. When did he bring it to the group? What was it about the sound of that composition that appealed to you?

Christian: He recorded that song on one of his solo albums a few years back. With this particular group, since there are no chordal instruments, no guitar, no piano, I think everyone has in their head, everyone in the band has in their head that what could really work with no chords would have a really good. I feel that most listeners, again, even non-jazz listeners or the jazz connoisseur, we like chords, we like hearing a piano, we like hearing a guitar, we like hearing vibes. We like hearing some underpinning of harmony.

When you just have two horns, bass, and drums, there's a lot of rhythm going on. When you want to make something melodic, I think you have to be a little more deliberate. You have to be a little more creative and creating that counterpoint or those layers between just the horns and me. I think Marcus knew that this song would work well with just the bass and the drums and two horns which is how he recorded it. I didn't even know that. He recorded it with just saxophone, bass, and drums. He was 10 years ahead of the band before he joined. [laughs].

Alison: Head Bedlam, that's the first track. Yes, you wrote it. It's a wild first minute. We go on a ride that first minute. We're going to listen to it. Can you set this up for us a little bit, what you want people to listen for?

Christian: [clears throat]. Excuse me. I feel that the opening minute of the first track is the sound that all of us collectively have heard in our minds for the last almost three years.

Alison: Let's listen to Head Bedlam.

[music]

Alison: We heard a beginning of that intro, that wild fiery intro. We had a little bit that and then we eased into the groove.

Christian: It sneaks into that. That's right.

Alison: Right. We just lay back into the groove.

Christian: We should warn the listeners the intros are a lot longer.

Alison: Yes. We wanted to make sure we got--

Christian: I got to say when you said let's listen to that I was like, "They're not going to play the whole intro. No way in the world." [laughter]

Alison: I played the whole intro it was this morning when I got up.

Christian: You were like, "What?" [laughter]

Alison: Exactly.

Christian: Good. It did its job.

Alison: Said what as I listen to it. Yes, it catches your attention and then I love that it laid in the groove because it is that to your point. I'm glad you described it this past three years so that frantic, frantic, frantic. All right. [crosstalk]

Christian: Yes. Let's take a breath, let's settle down.

Alison: We're going to stick it, we're going to settle down.

Christian: That's right.

Alison: You're the bassist. Do you compose on the bass?

Christian: Surprisingly I don't compose from the bass as much as I probably should [chuckles]. I compose most of my music from the piano. At one point I realized that I was not as prolific or the music was not coming out as quickly as I wanted it to. I don't know why. Just one day some intelligence actually kicked in and I said, "You're not a piano player. You play the bass. Go write a song on the bass and see what happens." This flood of ideas started coming out and I'm just like, "I'm an idiot."

Alison: You'd put a little obstacle in your own way. That's interesting.

Christian: Most of my favorite composers tend to be piano players. I play remedial piano. I could play enough piano not to be embarrassed. In terms of writing, it just takes a little longer to-- I'm hearing something and then it gets to my fingers and then it slows up by 50%. I went to the bass and all these songs started coming out like wow, what do you know?

Alison: What do you know? You're also a band leader, what does that mean to you? When you think about the job [unintelligible 00:12:50] [crosstalk]

Christian: Losing money, that's what it means to be a band leader. Feeling requests and complaints and all kinds of stuff about money, accommodations. Music has very little to do with it.

Alison: Really, it's the administrative part of it in many ways.

Christian: A band leader means that you are responsible for taking care of your band members and making sure the mood is correct on and off the stage. Then you look at the budget for the tour, you can guarantee that in the first few years of your investment as a band leader, you're not going to make a lot of money. You will if you're lucky but more often than not it's going to be a long road. You just got to stick with it. Stick with it.

Alison: Has there been a time in your life when Christian McBride the band leader had to have a conversation with Christian McBride the bassist?

Christian: Absolutely. All the time. I tend to, I don't want to say beat myself up but I'm always trying to make sure that everyone that works with me is cool like, "Hey, you sure you cool with everything? Is there something I can do?" Then when they tell me they are cool, I go into my head like, "I hope they weren't lying."

Alison: "Are they really cool?"

Christian: Right. [laughs]

Alison: My guest Christian McBride the new album which is out tomorrow is Christian McBride's New Jawn - Prime. Let's listen to some more music. This is Ornette Coleman's song, The Good Life. When did you first hear the song?

Christian: I played this song with Pat Metheny for many years. I played in his trio for-- gosh, I don't know how long that trio was together but I've had a wonderful working relationship with Pat since the early '90s and this is one of his favorite songs. He recorded this with Ornette Coleman in the '80s on their legendary recording called Song X. I initially learned the song from Pat.

Alison: He's a cool dude.

Christian: Oh, he's the best

Alison: Short story tangent, my kid's playing up in Woodstock, playing ball on a field, another kid they're playing around and the kid says, "That's my dad. He's Pat Metheny." The guy's shagging balls. [laughter]

Christian: That's awesome.

Alison: This is The Good Life.

[music]

That is The Good Life from Christian McBride's new album Christian McBride's New Jawn - Prime. How do when you really want to switch up someone else's work, what goes into that decision?

Christian: That's a good question. There is a sensitivity that you must have when someone brings in a song and you think that there might be something that you can do to make it better for the band. Generally, most musicians I've been so fortunate to work with the best musicians who are always open to making adjustments oftentimes without me having to ask because they'll bring a song and say, "Hey, do you like that? Do we need to extend this or shorten this?" Or whatever it is.

I think the master of that was Miles Davis. You hear stories about Miles Davis people would bring him songs and Miles was the master at saying, "Let's leave out these two measures here." Or, "Let's extend these four measures to eight measures." He always knew how to tweak somebody's song just to make it fit perfectly inside of the band. Fortunately, I've been able to work with musicians who do that before I have to say anything.

Alison: There's a bass solo in The Good Life. Let's play it and we can talk about it on the other side.

Christian: No, no bass solo.

[music] [instruments]

Alison: Now is that one of those things that--

Christian: That's the first time I've listened to that.

Alison: What'd you think?

Christian: Okay.

Alison: Okay.

[laughter]

Christian: Not disgusting.

Alison: That's interesting. Once it's out in the world and going to this-- Thank you for the album by the way.

Christian: Oh, my pleasure.

Alison: Out in the world you let it go.

Christian: Absolutely. For most artists, as you know by the time the recording comes out it's old to us. I've been listening to this mixing, editing, mastering for over a year. I'm already working on my next album.

Alison: Of course you are. We were talking yesterday in one of our meetings about how maybe we wanted to do a segment called Next Gen Jazz, up-and-coming jazz artists. Who are you noticing in the new generation?

Christian: Oh my goodness, there are so many incredible younger musicians out there on the scene right now. It would take me a while to name them, but just raise your hand when you want me to stop talking. I started a new group last year, and the oldest person in the band is 30.

Alison: Nice.

Christian: It consists of Nicole Glover on tenor Saxophone, Ely Pearlman on guitar, Mike King on piano, and Savannah Harris on drums. Those are four of the finest, most incredible younger musicians who I can think of. Also, there are people like Isaiah J Thompson. There's Emmett Cohen. There's the new queen Samara Joy. Who was just out there killing it. Alexa Tarantino. Goodness, gracious.

Alison: That's a good list. Thank you. You just booked our next six months.

Christian: There you go. Philip Norris in there, Russell Hall. Just so many good cats out there playing right now.

Alison: Like that they got a little air time. The name of the album is Christian McBride's New Jawn - Prime Christians album. [unintelligible 00:21:10] tomorrow. Then you are on tour.

Christian: I'm leaving tonight, actually.

Alison: Safe travels to you. We'll go out on one more track from the album. This is East Broadway Rundown.

[music]

 

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