Christian McBride is renowned for his musical flexibility. Prime is the second release by the…
Tag: Christian McBride
The Week in Jazz is your roundup of new and noteworthy stories from the jazz…
The Week in Jazz is your roundup of new and noteworthy stories from the jazz…
It was a good night for bass players. Not only did Christian McBride collect a…
The editors of JAZZIZ have the good fortune of being able to listen to new…
The Week in Jazz is your roundup of new and noteworthy stories from the jazz…
The editors of JAZZIZ have the good fortune of being able to listen to new…
Photo of Ornette Coleman: ©Burt Goldblatt/CTSIMAGES The Week in Jazz is your roundup of new…
The Week in Jazz is your roundup of new and noteworthy stories from the jazz…
The Week in Jazz is your roundup of new and noteworthy stories from the jazz…
The name Inside Straight alludes to the nature of this particular Christian McBride quintet: What…
If you’re looking for some great new music to discover this weekend, look no further…
The Week in Jazz is your roundup of new and noteworthy stories from the jazz…
An icon and trailblazer reinterprets some of his most iconic hit songs on solo piano;…
Bass great Christian McBride has shared a live take on “The Shade of the Cedar…
The Week in Jazz is your roundup of new and noteworthy stories from the jazz…
After a one-year break due to the pandemic, The ASCAP Foundation, led by President Paul Williams,…
Six years ago, in 2015, I had the honor of being on a panel of…
The Week in Jazz is your roundup of new and noteworthy stories from the jazz…
This article features new albums from Mack Avenue Records. To order Dan Wilson’s new album, Vessels…
Christian McBride (Photos by Anna Webber/Mack Avenue Records)[/caption] Shannon J. Effinger for JAZZIZ (SJE): I remember first hearing rumblings about Brother Mister a few years ago, so I was confused because I thought that the label had already launched back in 2017 or 2018. Am I off about the date? Christian McBride (CM): You're right — 2018 was the [label’s] first official release. And that was the release of my quartet The New Jawn. SJE: Got it. Now let’s talk about the history and origin behind the Brother Mister name. I read that it had to do with an exchange that you had had with the late Godfather of Soul, James Brown.
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James Brown with McBride (Photo: David Perry)[/caption] CM: Well I'm sure that it really didn't mean a whole lot to James Brown because it was so casual, but it meant the world to me. So that was the prefix that he used. If he was feeling particularly comfortable and felt like he knew you well, he always called you Mister and Miss. It was like a respect thing for him. You know, even in the most casual of moments, he would still call you Mister McBride, Mister Wilson, Miss Effinger — rarely was there a first name drop. But when he would let his guard down a little bit, it went from Mister McBride to Brother McBride, or Brother Wilson or Sister Shannon. Now he starts to pull his guard down a little bit.
When he had his guard all the way down, which was extremely rare, you got elevated to not Mister McBride, not Brother McBride, but Brother Mister McBride [Laughs]. He threw them both in there. Once we were backstage at The Hollywood Bowl. This was just a few months before his passing. And we were going through the rundown of the show and he just kind of casually threw out there just like a moment of casualness. He was just like “Brother Mister McBride? What do you think about that?” And I was like, “Yo, he said, Brother Mister!” I don't think he really knew what that meant, at least to me. So I always remembered that. SJE: I often worry that the next generations that are coming up are not going to know James Brown or feel Aretha Franklin the way that we did coming up. CM: It's hard for me to imagine a world like that. But that's real talk. I guess the more time moves along, the more you get away from those roots. I'm sure our grandparents felt the same way about the Swing Era. They were like, "Look, I know y'all love Miles Davis and Coltrane, but y'all better not forget about Roy Eldridge, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Billie Holiday — they were good too." So we go keep the Godfather alive. SJE: Talk about when you ultimately decided to launch the Brother Mister imprint. CM: Well, it just seemed to be sort of an organic and natural evolution. I had produced a couple of records. On Mack Avenue, I produced Christian Sands' first record and Warren Wolf's first record. In fact, I brought Warren and Christian to Mack Avenue and I had produced a couple of other records away from Mack Avenue that I was trying to bring to Mack Avenue. My manager at that time, Andre Guess, we just kinda looked at each other and went “Hmm...I think we got the makings of an imprint here, you know?” And so we went to Mack Avenue and told them our idea and they said, “Yeah, that sounds like a plan.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps4fkfUaO3U SJE: You just mentioned your history with Mack Avenue Records. You've been at the label since 2008. Given your history and time with the label, elaborate more on why they were the ultimate partner for you at this juncture? CM: Well 
Christian McBride, portrait by Anna Webber. New York City 2017[/caption] SJE: Given that your career to date has taken you so many places, was either creative control or ownership a factor in starting this new venture? CM: I think it was a combination of a natural progression and the way that the business was moving. It was moving away from the big company signing an artist and having that artist basically working for that company. It started to move away from that and the way it was going, artists had to, as you say it, start looking at the fine print and kind of go behind the curtain, see what's there and learn about the business. So I think for me, it was probably more like this natural evolution of working with other artists and mentoring younger artists and bringing artists to the label. And at some point it just kind of seemed like, “Hey, I feel like I feel like an A&R person, or like a label exec. Let me look into this a little more." So, it was all natural. 
SJE: I’m starting to explore are artist-run labels in jazz — like Betty Carter’s Bet-Car Records, for example. How much did you factor in that precedent, especially in jazz? Because it seems like such a rare feat for artists to have labels in this music, especially artists of color. CM: Oh, absolutely. I think that's been a rarity in any genre, be it jazz or R&B or whatever it is. I've always kept a close eye on people like Betty, people like Charles Mingus, of course James Brown, Sam Cooke. And I look at the people who have had successful careers as executives. Obviously, someone like Quincy Jones is the first person that comes to mind. And I try to keep track of what worked, what didn't, why was this label successful and this label was not. I'm always trying to take in information, not bite off more than I can chew, because I also think that can be a potential downfall. Sometimes your eyes get too big for you for your infrastructure. Cats start going around like, “I’mma sign 10 artists,” right? And then you don’t have that kind of infrastructure or the capital to be able to take care of 10 artists. So you start with maybe one here and then you get two.
So I'm very excited that Dan [Wilson] is going to be putting out something on Brother Mister. He literally knocked me out the first time I heard him play. I actually got a little upset when I first heard him play, because I was like, “How come I don't know about him?" I was like, “Yo, this cat is ridiculous.”
Dan, that was that 2013? I think it was either '13 or '14 because that was the year I was the artist-in-residence at Tri-C Jazz Festival.
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Dan Wilson (Photo: Courtesy the artist)[/caption] SJE: Dan, now let’s pivot over to you. Tell me about your new album with Brother Mister. Dan Wilson (DW): The name of the album is 
DW: This is the cool thing about working with McBride: I've been a sideman for various different people and sometimes you have to navigate your bandleaders’ quirks or difficult parts of their personality. I first joined his band and was kind of bracing myself for that. I'm like, “There's going to be something weird that I have to work around.” That never came, and it extended into the studio session. Even on the production side of things, some cats get the title of producer and you think it's going to be like, “No one talks in my meetings. This is not a democracy!” [Laughs] It wasn’t like that at all. He made suggestions where they were necessary, but he didn’t take over. [In one instance,] I was a little insecure about this Isley Brothers tune I brought into rehearsal and he was like, “I like you man, cause it’s who you is.” [Laughs] That pretty much sums it up. Photo of Christian McBride courtesy Mack Avenue/Anna Webber Photo of Dan Wilson courtesy the artist