2024 · Album
Unanimous
Recorded 2024 · Mack Avenue Records · Produced by Christian McBride and Ulysses Owens Jr.
Five Voices Moving as One
Owens conducts a conversation where no one person dominates, where listening matters as much as playing.
From the opening moments, this is a room where five musicians are genuinely talking to each other. Ulysses Owens Jr. sits behind the drums but doesn't drive — he listens first, responds second. The tempos breathe. The dynamics shift because someone in the band felt the moment shift, not because a chart demanded it. Nicholas Payton's trumpet and Jaleel Shaw's alto saxophone weave around Michael Dease's trombone with real air between the voices. Christian McBride anchors everything on double bass with a conversational swing that pulls the whole sound forward. Christian Sands at the piano finds spaces to fill, not melodies to announce. This is hard-bop in its most functional sense — the style that lets strong individual players sound their strongest without any of them trying to outplay the others.
Owens leads by stepping back. His drumming on these sessions is proportionate and exact. He's not keeping time so much as sculpting the room's energy. The album sits somewhere between a conventional jazz quartet and something more expansive — the trombone adds color and weight that keeps everything from feeling familiar. Tracks move from straightforward swingers into moments that feel genuinely explored, where the soloists aren't just taking turns but building on what came before. Nothing here sounds like it was sorted out in advance.
This is a debut by a bandleader thinking clearly about what a quintet can do when no one person needs to be the hero. The music doesn't announce itself as important. It simply works because the five people playing together know how to listen.
Who's playing
Christian McBridedouble bass
Christian Sandspiano
Jaleel Shawalto saxophone
Nicholas Paytontrumpet
Michael Deasetrombone
Ulysses Owens, Jr.drums
Where next?
The musicians on this record
PRIME 2023
Christian McBride
plays double bass here
plays double bass here
Gumbo Nouveau 1996
Nicholas Payton
plays trumpet here
plays trumpet here
