(upbeat music) [Jazz Music Playing] - He's back in the house, our house.

He's Christian McBride, bassist, composer, jazz advisor at NJPAC.

He has a new album coming out.

What's it called?

- Prime.

- We were just listening to that.

And, and, help us on this, Your, jawn, J-A-W-N, a slang term outta Philadelphia.

What's, what is it again?

- It's a noun.

It it's a person, place or thing.

It's a, a, a, it's an all-purpose word.

If you can't think of what something is called, it's a jawn.

- A jawn, okay.

So, Frank - Yeah.

You're holding, you're holding a jawn right now.

- Well, Frank Brown who's our, not just our great audio engineer, but he is a jazz and music aficionado.

He says, hey, you wanna look cool with Christian?

Tell him that you heard that the word jawn, J-A-W-N that Websters has said it's an official word.

That's not true.

Frank, is that true?

- That's very true.

- What?

- It's now an official word.

- And say again what it means.

- It's, it's a person, place or thing.

It's a, it's a noun.

You know, a, a car is a jawn, a house is a jawn, a band is a jawn.

That's why when people say that my new band is called Christian McBride's New Jawn, people like to say oh, the New Jawn Quartet.

No, no.

A quartet is already a jawn.

It's just the New Jawn.

- I, I gotta work to keep up.

- In, in New York is, in New York, it's joint, you know?

Every region has its own version of that.

- I love it.

Hey, listen, talk to us about, first of all, the James Moody, the 12th Annual TD James Moody Festival coming up.

Talk to us.

- Yes.

Well, we're still in the early stages of putting it together, but we've had so much fun doing that festival over these last 12 years.

There's always some major, major hits.

And last year we had a huge hit with the Represent Night with jazz spoken word and hip hop where we had Black Thought, Yasiin Bey, the great Nicki Giovanni, along with my band.

And so we're looking forward to putting everything together for this year's Moody Festival.

- You know, to, I'm curious about this.

To what degree is the Newport, the iconic Newport Jazz Festival influence the James Moody Festival?

- Well, the Newport Jazz Festival is America's first festival, first jazz festival.

So every festival that has come after that has taken some sort of page from the Newport Jazz Festival.

In fact, George Wein, who was the founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, his protege was John Schreiber, who is the CEO of NJPAC.

- And by the way, John is- -Newport and NJPAC.

- But, I'm sorry for interrupting, John isn't just the CEO of NJPAC.

John is jazz, John loves jazz.

- Yes he is.

- He's lived it for a long time.

- Yes, he has.

- Yeah.

I'm curious about this, the, the kind of folks who were attracted to, to the Moody Festival.

Who are they?

- Well, one of the things that we took into consideration when we first started this festival is that we wanted to get people from all across the spectrum.

We wanted to get younger people, we wanted to get people from all different cultures, and, you know, we do that by bringing, you know jazz, straight ahead, jazz fusion, straight ahead, Latin jazz, some soul, some rock, you know a little bit of everything.

So, I think we have about as diverse a following as you can have.

- Now, I'm curious about this jazz in the community here in Montclair.

As you well know, we have just a little bit of a jazz festival going on in the summer.

- Little bit.

- It is wild.

Real quick, tell folks why that matters because there are so many communities across the state and the region that have their own jazz festivals.

- Yes, yes.

Well, as you well know, my wife, Melissa, Melissa Walker, who was the founder of Jazz House Kids.

- Let's put up the website for Jazz House Kids.

Go ahead, I'm sorry, Christian.

- Yes.

Yeah, and so, 12 years ago, around the same time we started the TD Jazz Moody, James Moody Festival.

We, we started a summer camp and during that summer program we wanted to have a end of the camp concert for our, our young students.

And so the first year of the camp, you know, just the parents of the participants came out.

Then the next year it got a little bigger.

Then the next year we invited Monte Alexander to come and play with our young students.

Each year, it kept growing and growing and all of a sudden Melissa looked, and I looked at each other and said, Hey, I think we got something going here.

And it went from being 50 people in the audience to 20,000 people in the audience.

And now it's a free festival right in the middle of Bloomfield Avenue.

And I couldn't be any prouder of what we're doing here in Montclair.

- You know, you're, you're band right now.

Talk about, cause you've been in many groups, many bands, you've led many.

What makes this unique and different?

- Well, the band that I had before I had the New Jawn, I had a, I had a trio.

- That's right.

- And the, the two, the two other gentlemen who were in that trio, Christian Sands on piano, Ulysses Owens, Jr. on drums, that band became very popular.

And both of those two gentlemen went on to do wonderful things after that trio.

So I decided that whatever my next band was going to be, I didn't wanna simply just replace those guys and play the same repertoire.

Let me do a 180 and create a band that sounded nothing like that trio.

And so I got trumpeter Josh Evans, saxophonist Marcus Strickland, and the great Nasheet Waits on drums.

And I thought of this band as, you know, more of progressive, you know, we can get a little abstract, but we can go right down the middle.

This, this band is a, is a rollercoaster.

And we've been working together now for just about eight years.

- Hmm.

I'm curious, before I let you go, Christian, in all the times we've had you on, all the years we've known each other.

I've never asked you this, but I I do want to ask you now.

The business of jazz, the business of being who you are in the industry, your brand, as an entrepreneur.

It's an art form in itself, is it not?

- Absolutely.

You know, I came into this business for one reason only, and that was to be a working bass player.

I heard all of these great jazz legends who I admired and looked up to, and I thought, I want to play bass with them.

So in order to do that, I had to learn a lot of music.

I had to do a lot of, you know, I guess they would call it networking, but I just tried to get to know all of these great jazz legends who I, I looked up to and things just kind of snowballed after that, you know?

So I always feel like if you want something bad enough you just gotta go out and get it.

You know, that, that, those hustle skills, that, that sort of extra, you know, just that-- - We call it grit, I'm calling it grit.

- That grit, man.

- Yep.

You know, I, I am sorry for interrupting.

I've often thought some people think I'm nuts on our team and I think, well, we're in the media arts, cause I believe we're in the arts, but we're also in the art, the art form of running a business that's tight and makes sense and, and, and, and, and, and turns a profit, if you will, even as a not-for-profit.

The point I'm making is I don't think people appreciate how hard people like you work at the business of being a great musician and pulling a band together.

Anyway, I'm on my soapbox.

That's Christian McBride.

He's a bassist, composer, jazz advisor at the great NJPAC, New Jersey Performing Arts Center.

Wish you all the best, Christian.

- Always wonderful to speak with you, my man.

- Always great.

And, and also, give our best to Melissa Walker, your partner your longtime partner, your wife who leads Jazz House Kids.

Take care of my friend.

- Thank you.

See you soon.

- You got it.

Right back, right after this.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by TD Bank.

Rutgers University Newark.

PSEG Foundation.

Newark Board of Education.

The New Jersey Education Association.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The Fidelco Group.

And by The Russell Berrie Foundation.

Promotional support provided by New Jersey Globe.

And by BestofNJ.com.

- (Narrator) New Jersey is home to the best public schools in the nation, and that didn't happen by accident.

It's the result of parents, educators and communities working together year after year to give our students a world class education.

No matter the challenge, because parents and educators know that with a shared commitment to our public schools, our children can learn, grow and thrive.

And together, we can keep New Jersey's public schools the best in the nation.