ICONIC
The great Christian McBride is equally at home with a stand-up bass—playing jazz with legends like Chick Corea, Diana Krall and McCoy Tyner—and the electric instrument, in connection with soul titans James Brown and Aretha Franklin as well as rock stars such as Paul McCartney and Sting. A prolific solo artist, he has a sizeable discography of his own behind him as well as countless sessions; his latest album, The Movement Revisited: A Musical Portrait Of Four Icons, is out now.
Christian, does your double bass playing inform your electric technique?
“I was doing things on the double bass that I wasn’t supposed to. It helps to be a rebel sometimes”
Actually it’s the other way around, because I started on the electric bass. When I moved to the double bass, I just carried on doing a lot of the things I had been doing on the electric, not knowing that I was not supposed to be doing those things at all! I think it helps to be a rebel sometimes. Naivety can work for you sometimes—because if you don’t know the rules, you don’t know you’re breaking them, which for musicians, is often a useful thing to happen.
