“My career is no longer for the benefit of just me,” says “he’s-everywhere” jazz bassist Christian McBride on his website.

McBride brings his new band of younger players – Ursa Major – to open the McCormack Jazz Series Thursday at the Spa Little Theater on the SPAC grounds. 

Don McCormick supports jazz everywhere, especially around Saratoga. As founder of the Skidmore Jazz Institute (in 1987), a training and mentorship program with world-class teachers, McCormack is very much on the same page as McBride in nurturing next-gen talents.

Christian McBride. Photo provided

As performer, composer and leader, McBride earns his “he’s everywhere” thing by leading five bands, plus Ursa Major: Inside Straight, The Christian McBride Big Band, The Christian McBride Trio, Christian McBride’s New Jawn, and A Christian McBride Situation.

He’s played everywhere including often at Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival. In 2007, McBride, Jack DeJohnette and Bruce Hornsby hit Northampton’s Calvin Theater on their Camp Meeting tour; a few months later he played the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall with Pat Metheny and Antonio Sanchez. 

McBride’s bands are an opportunity one for fresh talent. Inside Straight co-stars pianist Christian Sands, vibraphonist Warren Wolf and drummer Ulysses Owens Jr. McBride’s trio features Sands and drummer Jerome Jennings. A Christian McBride Situation adds turntablists DJ Logic and Jahi Sundance to conventional players pianist Patrice Rushen, saxophonist Ron Blake and singer Alyson Williams while the New Jawn is McBride with trumpeter Josh Evans, saxophonist Marcus Strickland and drummer Nasheet Watts.

One of the busiest leaders, educators, catalysts in jazz, McBride keeps exploring in new directions. 

His new “But Who’s Gonna Play the Melody?” album with Edgar Meyer may be as basic as jazz gets – two double bass virtuosos swinging and rocking. Ursa Major is aggressive young virtuosos.

Now 62, McBride stands half a musical generation older than this new crew.

Pianist Michael King started on the drums in his Chicago church at four. A graduate of Lincoln Park High School, Oberlin Conservatory, the Thelonious Monk Institute and the Ravinia Jazz Scholars Program, King has played with Bobby Watson (as did a young Christian McBride), Kevin Eubanks, Dave Liebeman, Gary Bartz, Billy Hart, Joel Frahm, Rufus Reid, Antonio Hart and others.

Drummer Savannah Harris grew up in Oakland with musician parents and chose the drums at two. She plays experimental and straight-ahead styles, recording and touring with Geri Allen, Jason Moran, Ambrose Akinmusire, Terrence Blanchard, Linda May Han Oh, Billy Childs, Immanuel Wilkins, Joel Ross, and Aaron Parks. In 2019, Savannah received the Harlem Stage Emerging Artist Award and earned her master’s in jazz performance from the Manhattan School of Music.

Saxophonist, bandleader, composer and educator Nicole Glover plays with Artemis, including the supergroup’s two albums and A Place for Jazz October 4. She has also released solo albums, including the award-winning “Strange Lands” with pianist George Cables. Growing up in Portland, Oregon, she studied with the American Music Program and William Patterson University with Harold Mabern, Mulgrew Miller. She performs with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Orchestra in Mary Lou Williams’s “Zodiac Suite.” She teaches at Princeton University, the Manhattan School of Music and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Guitarist Ely Perlman is still a Berklee College of Music student; he studied earlier at the Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts and the Center for Jazz Studies at the Israel Conservatory of Music, Tel Aviv. A busy bandleader, he fronts a jazz quartet and a the indie-rock band SWIMS.

These Ursa Major players have a VERY imposing example to follow. 

Philadelphia-born Christian McBride graduated from the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) whose alumni also includes Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson of The Roots, Joey DeFrancesco, and Kurt Rosenwinkel. At first, McBride emulated hometown smooth-swinging soul and R&B artists before switching from electric to acoustic bass and exploring jazz at Juilliard with important mentors all the way including Bobby Watson, Ray Brown and Chick Corea. 

Winner of nine Grammys, McBride is Artistic Director of the Newport Jazz Festival, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), the TD James Moody Jazz Festival, and Harlem’s National Jazz Museum. 

He is also Artistic Director of Jazz House KiDS and the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Summer Sessions and hosts NPR’s “Jazz Night in America” and “The Lowdown: Conversations With Christian” on SiriusXM. 

In a remarkable coup, McBride was nominated in 2020 to two Grammys in the same category — Best Jazz Instrumental Album — for RoundAgain with Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau and Brian Blade; and Trilogy 2, a live double-album with Blade and Corea.

The versatile McBride’s oratory masterwork “The Movement Revisited: A Musical Portrait of Four Icons” honors civil rights leaders Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and Muhammad Ali.

He is Artistic Director at the University of Richmond and leads jazz programs at Richmond, Jazz Aspen, and the Brubeck Institute.

As Creative Chair for Jazz at the LA Philharmonic, he curated 12 concerts a season at the Hollywood Bowl and Walt Disney Concert Hall. In his first summer as creative chair, McBride proudly presented his musical hero, James Brown.

These world-class credentials make an impressive list, but McBride reaches far past the paperwork in how he plays. He cruises and grooves, with the confident drive of Philly soul in its uncanny balance of muscular push and inviting, calm grace. His highly evolved harmonic mastery combines with alert listening so his bands are always cooperative, interactive and organic.

Saratoga Performing Arts Center honored Don McCormack, Dean of Special Programs at Skidmore College and founder (in 1987) of the Skidmore Summer Jazz Institute in a special observance at the 47th Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival in June.

Don McCormack. Photo provided

SPAC continues celebrating McCormack’s support of jazz, including the training of young artists, in the McCormack Jazz Series, presented in the Spa Little Theater. 

The McCormack Jazz Series at the Spa Little Theater continues November 22 with Dorado Schmitt and Sons: Django Festival All-Stars (acoustic stringed things, swinging as fast as possible) with the very compatible local opener Hot Club of Saratoga. Cuban pianist Alfredo Rodriguez leads his Trio April 5, 2025, and the series concludes May 1, 2025 with singer Veronica Swift – no relation to that other singing Swift.

Christian McBride and Ursa Major launch the McCormack Jazz Series Thursday, October 24. 7 p.m. The Spa Little Theater is east of the Hall of Springs and Gideon Putnam, at 19 Roosevelt Dr., Saratoga Springs. Tickets for Christian McBride and Ursa Major are $81.50 – $51.50; students $31.50. http://www.spac.org.