An eight-time Grammy Award-winning bassist, composer, and bandleader, Christian McBride moved to New York in 1989 to pursue classical studies at The Juilliard School. There he was promptly recruited to the road by saxophonist Bobby Watson. Call it a change in curriculum: a decade’s worth of study through hundreds of recording sessions and countless gigs with an ever-expanding circle of musicians. He was finding his voice, and others were learning to listen for it.

In 2000, the lessons of the road came together in the formation of what would become his longest-running project, the Christian McBride Band. Praised by writer Alan Leeds as "one of the most intoxicating, least predictable bands on the scene today," the CMB—saxophonist Ron Blake, keyboardist Geoffrey Keezer, and drummer Terreon Gully—have been collectively evolving McBride's all-inclusive, forward-thinking outlook on music through their incendiary live shows, as chronicled on 2006’s Live at Tonic.

In 2009, McBride began focusing this same energy through a more traditional lens with the debut of his critically acclaimed Inside Straight quintet, and again with the Christian McBride Big Band, whose 2012 release The Good Feeling won the Grammy for Best Large Ensemble Jazz Album. As his career entered its third decade, McBride added the role of mentor, tapping rising stars, pianist Christian Sands and drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr. for the Christian McBride Trio’s Grammy-nominated album Out Here.

McBride is the artistic director of the historic Newport Jazz Festival, New Jersey Performing Arts center (NJPAC), the TD James Moody Jazz Festival, and the National Jazz Museum in Harlem.

He is also a respected educator and advocate as the artistic director of Jazz House Kids, the nationally recognized community arts organization founded by his wife, vocalist Melissa Walker. Exclusively dedicated to educating children through jazz, the “Jazz House” concept brings internationally renowned jazz performers to teach alongside a professional staff, offering students a wide range of creative programming.

Currently he hosts and produces The Lowdown: Conversations with Christian on SiriusXM satellite radio and National Public Radio’s Jazz Night in America, a weekly radio show and multimedia collaboration between WBGO, NPR and Jazz at Lincoln Center, showcasing outstanding live jazz from across the country.

Whether behind the bass or away from it, Christian McBride is always of the music. From jazz, to R&B, pop/rock, hip-hop/neo-soul, to classical, he is a luminary with one hand ever reaching for new heights, and the other extended in fellowship—and perhaps the hint of a challenge—inviting us to join him.