Christian McBride | en

Born and raised in Fulton, MO, keyboardist/singer Joe McBride began playing the piano at age four. His uncle Bake McBride was an outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals and the Cleveland Indians. His earliest influences were gospel music, bebop, straight-ahead jazz, Motown, and '70s R&B and funk. As a teenager, he began singing and playing at jazz clubs. Around this time, McBride was stricken with a degenerative eye disease that eventually claimed his sight, but his passion for music didn't diminish. He continued his musical studies at the Missouri School for the Blind and Webster University in suburban St. Louis,...

Christian McBride (born May 31, 1972, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a jazz bassist. His father, Lee Smith, is a well known Philadelphia bassist who was McBride's mentor. In the jazz community, McBride is widely considered one of the best bassists of his generation. McBride has performed and recorded with a huge number of jazz legends, including Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, Roy Haynes, Pat Metheny and Chick Corea, as well as with newer musicians like Joshua Redman, Nicholas Payton, Benny Green and Sting. McBride is known for his equal facility at playing pizzicato and with the bow. McBride primarily plays...

Taking his first steps onto the scene back in 2000, Christian snuck into the back room of a underground nightclub that some friends of his had rented for the evening to host a jazz night. There in the back was an abandoned DJ booth. Having tried, and failed miserably, to mix together ATB’s “9 P.M.” and the Matt Darey remix of Blockster’s “Grooveline”, Christian was hooked. He returned to Sweden for a one-week vacation, purchased a mixer and a deck, some 30 records and returned to Beijing. That following Thursday he auditioned at the now legendary Club VOGUE (88) and...

Christian Vander (aka Zëbëhn Straïn dë Ğeuštaah; born February 21, 1948) is a French drummer, musician, and founder of the band Magma, who sing their songs in Kobaïan, his constructed language. Besides his work with Magma, he has also performed solo, with the Christian Vander Trio and Christian Vander Quartet, and in Offering. Vander was born in Nogent-sur-Marne. He is known both for his unique songwriting and his virtuosic drumming. His compositions fuse jazz, rock, classical and opera influences, and draw on the work of musicians as diverse as John Coltrane and Carl Orff. Vander's music is broadly classified as...