Mack Ave. Records Signs Christian McBride
Mack Avenue Records Signs Bassist Christian McBride
Composer and Bandleader Assembles New Quintet for Studio Recording
Ambitious Plans Also Call For A Series of 20 'Conversation' Duets
To Celebrate McBride's 20 Years in the Music Industry
Photo credit: Maria Ehrenreich
Pictured, from left to right: André Kimo Stone Guess (President, GuessWorks, Inc., Management for Christian McBride); Al Pryor (EVP A&R, Mack Avenue Records); Terri Pontremoli (Artistic Director, Detroit International Jazz Festival); Denny Stilwell (President, Mack Avenue Records); Gretchen Valade (Chair, Mack Avenue Records); Christian McBride; Tom Robinson (CEO, Mack Avenue Records)
DETROIT, MI., October 15, 2008 - From the main stage during the Detroit International Jazz Festival on Saturday evening of Labor Day weekend, it was announced that Christian McBride, the Grammy Award-winning, chameleonic virtuoso of the acoustic and electric bass had been signed to the Mack Avenue Records label. McBride joins recent label mates, native Detroit altoist Kenny Garrett (his Mack Avenue debut featuring Pharoah Sanders was released September 23) and guitarist Stanley Jordan (his signing was announced at the 2007 festival)."I very much look forward to being a part of the Mack Avenue family," states McBride. "I predict that this will be a very fruitful and exciting association."
Mack Avenue President Denny Stilwell: "We will be breaking new ground in our arrangement with Christian, creatively and technologically. He is not only a dynamic performer, writer and educator, he is a terrific human being. We are exceptionally pleased to be working with him."
Within the month, McBride completed back-to-back artistic directorships for the Detroit and Monterey Jazz festivals, took a travel day and then went directly into Fantasy studios to document his new quintet, Christian McBride and Inside Straight, featuring Steve Wilson, Warren Wolf, Eric Reed and Carl Allen.
McBride also began assembling like-minded and genre-bending artists for a progressive series of 20 duets titled "Conversations With Christian," as part of a year-long project that celebrates his first 20 years as a professional musician, 1989-2009.
In between these projects, McBride will join Chick Corea's Five Peace band featuring John McLaughlin and Kenny Garrett for a Late Fall European tour, followed by a Spring U.S. tour. The Philadelphia native will also begin touring Inside Straight in May and a residency in New York City in the late summer for an evolving big band project. McBride's civil rights-inspired large ensemble piece titled "The Movement Revisited" had its premiere in May 2008 at Disney Hall in Los Angeles.
www.mackavenue.com
DL Media
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