Christian McBride

You can have the greatest player in terms of mastering an instrument and be yawning your head off.

I fell in love with Jazz when I was 12 listening to Duke Ellington and hearing a lot of Jazz in New York on the radio.

Jazz is an art form that depends on its antecedents. There must be respect for the people that have gone before.

Let me whisper it. Let me sigh it. Let me sing it, my dear or I will cry it.

The blues was like that problem child that you may have had in the family. You was a little bit ashamed to let anybody see him, but you loved him. You just didn’t know how other people would take it.

I adore extravagance but I abhor waste.

If I were to call it black music, that would be untrue. I don’t know what that is, unless it would be some African drums or something.

There has always been a tension between Jazz as a commercial music and as an art form.

I can play all I know in eight bars.

My music is the spiritual expression of what I am: my faith, my knowledge, my being.

There’s so many ways you can hit one note.

One of the advantages of growing older is you learn what to leave out.

Risk is at the heart of Jazz. Every note we play is a risk.

In my music, I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is because I’m changing all the time.

Bebop was about change, about evolution. It wasn’t about standing still and being safe.