Photo Credit: Ebru Yildiz
Today the 8-time GRAMMY® Award winner Christian McBride has released his seminal The Movement Revisited: A Musical Portrait of Four Icons on vinyl, via Mack Avenue Records. A sweeping four-part suite celebrating the civil rights movement, the album features arrangements for big jazz band, small jazz group, and gospel choir as well as four narrators who convey the pain, pathos, and ultimately hope of the struggle through the words and writings of four iconic figures: the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. The album is currently available for vinyl purchase here.
McBride performed the album suite at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2021. Watch the full performance here. The album was also explored on “Jazz Night In America,” the acclaimed NPR program which McBride regularly hosts, in a feature which highlighted multiple performances and discussed the roots of the project and its creation.
This week, McBride also announced his upcoming album Christian McBride’s New Jawn: Prime will be released on February 24th via McBride’s Brother Mister imprint on Mack Avenue Music Group. The album reflects the influence of the masters he’s studied under throughout his remarkable career, even as it reconfirms McBride’s place in the pantheon of today’s living legends of jazz, and is currently available for pre-save.
Originally released in 2020, The Movement Revisited is the culmination of a 20-year-long, continuously evolving project. In 1998, a musical commission from the Portland (Maine) Arts Society set in motion what would eventually become a major part of McBride’s life’s work. The only stipulation for the commission was that it had to include a choir. “At that time, I called it a musical portrait of the Civil Rights Movement,” Christian says. “I thought about those times and decided that rather than try to write a history of the movement, I wanted to evoke its spirit and feeling.”
Written for just a quartet and gospel choir, that original version of The Movement Revisited gave only a hint of what the piece would eventually become. In 2008, the L.A. Philharmonic asked if he would like to remake it as a far bigger version for their upcoming season, and the Detroit Jazz Festival asked him to expand the suite to include the words of newly-elected President Obama, which led to the creation of a fifth and final section of the suite, “Apotheosis, November 4th, 2008,” in which the icons quote Obama’s victory speech.
Born in Philadelphia, McBride was a gifted musical prodigy who soaked up influences from every direction. At the age of 17 he was recruited by saxophonist Bobby Watson to join his group, Horizon. During the 1990s, he proceeded to work with some of the biggest names in jazz, including Pat Metheny, Wynton Marsalis, Freddie Hubbard and Chick Corea, as well as major pop and rock stars like Sting, Paul McCartney, James Brown and Celine Dion. His abilities were also coveted by the classical music world, including opera legends Kathleen Battle and Renee Fleming.
The Movement Revisited: A Musical Portrait of Four Icons Tracklist:
01. Overture / The Movement Revisited
02. Sister Rosa – Prologue
03. Sister Rosa
04. Rosa Introduces Malcolm
05. Brother Malcolm – Prologue
06. Brother Malcolm
07. Malcolm Introduces Ali
08. Ali Speaks
09. Rumble in the Jungle
10. Rosa Introduces MLK
11. Soldiers (I Have a Dream)
12. A View from the Mountaintop
13. Apotheosis: November 4th, 2008
Christian McBride tour dates:
01/13 – Fort Lauderdale, FL – Blue Note at Sea
02/02 – Northridge, CA – Valley Performing Arts Center
02/03 – Scottsdale, AZ – Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts
02/11 – St. Augustine, FL – Fort Mose Historic State Park
02/17 – Toronto, ON – Meridian Hall
02/24 – Fort Collins, CO – The Lincoln Center
02/25 – Salt Lake City – UT – Capitol Theatre
02/26 – Boulder, CO – Boulder Theater
03/03 – Houston, TX – Wortham Theater Center
03/04 – San Antonio, TX – Tobin Center for the Performing Arts
03/21 – Minneapolis, MN – Dakota
03/22 – Minneapolis, MN – Dakota
03/23 – Chicago, IL – Constellation
03/24 – Detroit, MI – Orchestra Hall
03/28 – Geneva, NY – Smith Center for the Arts
03/30 – Knoxville, TN – Big Ears Festival 2023
03/30 – Wilmington, DE – Arden Gild Hall
03/31 – Richmond, VA – Modlin Center for the Arts
04/29 – Irvine, CA – Irvine Barclay Theatre
