Christian McBride has spent his career traveling the world, performing on the biggest stages in jazz. But every summer, one of the busiest musicians in the business comes home to Montclair, New Jersey - not simply to perform, but to throw what he jokingly calls a family reunion, for everyone.
“It feels like a private family party or reunion, but it’s open to the world,” he says.
McBride is the artistic director of the Montclair Jazz Festival, one of the country’s largest free jazz festivals. His wife, Melissa Walker, is the president and CEO of Jazz House Kids, the Montclair-based nonprofit that produces the festival.
“It was an accident, you know, because we started our summer academy sixteen years ago, and we had maybe fifty young students who were a part of the summer program. We set up a concert in Nishuane Park for them to perform after two weeks of study, and only the parents came out then.
And then the following year, we thought, ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if we asked a jazz legend to come and jam with the kids?’ So we invited Monty Alexander to come, and we didn’t even have a piano. He played on a little keyboard, and a couple more people came out.
The following year, we invited Joe Lovano to come out, and then it started getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And Melissa and I looked at each other and went, ‘Hmm, I think we have something here.’ And then it became the Montclair Jazz Festival.”
Today, that “something” draws tens of thousands of people. And one of the festival’s defining ideas is that everyone is invited.
He says: “We’re also trying to fight an old myth that people don’t appreciate free. Because once they hear something is free, they’re like, ‘Well, what’s wrong with it? It must not be a great product.’ But you can’t say that with the level of musicianship that comes to this festival.”
The festival has also deepened the way Christian thinks about the town he calls home.
“There’s this little town in New Jersey that has had one of the deepest pools of creativity in this music,” he says.
McBride says he decided early on that if he ever found himself in the position of the musicians he admired when he was growing up, he would do for younger musicians what they had done for him.
“When I was in high school, Max Roach came to the Settlement Music School in Philadelphia two years in a row. And he didn’t even play. He just came to talk to us. [...} It occurred to me that these incredible musicians didn’t have to take time out of their busy day to come and talk to us. And so I made a vow even back then: if I were ever in the same position, that’s what I would do. I would try to inspire the next generation.”
For Christian, introducing someone to jazz is about sharing the excitement.
“It also helps if you have someone who really loves the music who brings you into the music, because that’s what happened to me. My uncle Howard was the jazz aficionado of our family. When he found out that I was playing the upright bass in middle school, he said, ‘Come to my house. I got something for you.’
“I just remember watching the joy that he got listening to the music. Playing air bass along with the record. Talking to the record as it was playing. He would nudge me and say, ‘Hey, you hear that?’
“It was just so entertaining and fun, the way that he presented the music. I was hooked.”
Christian McBride has become for a lot of people what Uncle Howard was for him: inviting them a little closer, pointing to the music with unmistakable enthusiasm and saying, “You hear that?”
McBride closes this year’s Montclair Jazz Festival Downtown Jamboree -the festival’s main event - on August 15 with his big band and special guest Bilal.
Other artists performing that day include Dianne Reeves, the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, the Take Me to the River All-Stars and Patrice Rushen.
Visit montclairjazzfestival.org for more details.
