2009 · Album
Without Further Ado, Vol 1
Recorded 2008 · Mack Avenue Records · Produced by Christian McBride
A Bassist Steps Forward Without Apology
McBride strips away pretense and lets his bass voice do the talking with total confidence.
Christian McBride built his reputation as one of the most reliable, tasteful bass players in jazz, the kind of musician who made everyone around him sound better. By the time he recorded Without Further Ado, Vol. 1, he'd already proven himself countless times over as a sideman and bandleader. This album is different though—it's McBride deciding he's done waiting for permission. The title says it all. There's no setup, no apology, just straight into the music.
What's striking about this record is how direct it feels. McBride isn't trying to reinvent the bass or prove some avant-garde point. He's playing with musicians who understand swing and harmony at a deep level, and they're all just playing well together. The tunes move at a comfortable pace mostly—nothing that feels rushed or overly conceptual. You get a real sense of how McBride thinks as a bandleader, which is more about serving the song and the moment than about flashiness. His touch on the bass is clean and purposeful, never cluttered.
If you've mainly heard McBride as a supporting player, this is worth checking out to see what he actually wants to say when the decisions are his to make. It's not his most famous recording or his most experimental, but it's honest work from a musician who'd earned the right to make an album exactly the way he wanted to. That confidence comes through in every take.
