Christian McBride Trio
Out Here
Mack Avenue **** RECOMMENDED
His second new album in only a matter of months Out Here is the easy pick of the pair. It’s the 41-year-old Philly legend’s first (as far as I’m aware) in piano trio mode under his own name and here he’s joined by pianist Christian Sands, who’s still in his early twenties, and drummer Ulysses Owens Jr (30), who have both been with McBride for three years playing such clubs as the Village Vanguard in New York. Out Here is more natural and free flowing than the vibes and alto sax-flavoured People Music released in May. A double bass-led piano trio is very different to a piano-led piano trio (just think how Phronesis or Avishai Cohen’s trios sound) and that’s even when improvisational equality and ‘telepathy’ are thrown in. It’s not just about who writes the tunes or the arrangements although that’s a factor; it’s the whole shape and trajectory of the music, the little accents, the mix, idiosyncrasies, and a sense of momentum. Out Here is a smart suit supper club modern mainstream kind of jazz album, feelgood and not affected at all: there’s no crankiness anywhere, or coasting. Tunes include down home blues ‘Ham Hocks and Cabbage’, Oscar Peterson’s ‘Hallelujah Time’, McBride’s own ‘I Guess I’ll Have To Forget’, and Dr Billy Taylor’s ‘Easy Walker’. Highlights? Well, Sands’ break-out solo on ‘East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)' is up there, just eclipsed by McBride’s beautiful arco feature at the beginning of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘I Have Dreamed’, a song from The King and I. If you see the McBride Trio’s name up in lights somewhere and you’re standing around minding your own business on a street near where they’re playing and it’s the right time of day: step right in there. You won’t regret it even for a minute on this evidence.
Released on 29 July