Although Christian McBride is a familiar figure within the piano trio context, he has never led a piano trio of his own until now. In so doing it provides an effective context in which to feature pianist Christian Sands, a young man who can swing powerfully, build a line and, while steeped in the piano trio tradition, has a few fresh ideas of his own. McBride made his New York debut in 1989 in a (piano) trio led by Joey DeFrancesco at a club called Mood Indigo, and even at 17 years of age it was clear he was going to be important artist, a promise on which he has consistently delivered. And while jazz has long had a global presence and has been re-imagined by its global exponents in countless different ways, in this instance it is quite therapeutic to return to its core values, expressed by guys who really understand the tradition and are able to give new meaning to it in the contemporary context.

Jazzwise spoke to Christian McBride about the album

How come you have never lead piano trio until now?

I was never interested in leading a piano trio of my own, number one because I have played in so many piano trios as a sideman, another reason, I think was I didn’t want a comparison to Ray Brown, so I thought if I started a piano trio, then I’d never be able to shake the Ray Brown comparisons. But now I’m at a point in my career where I should let the music decide what I do.

Christian Sands is clearly a very impressive young man, although not widely known yet, even in New York City. Can you give us a little background and tell us why you decided to hook up with him.

I first met Christian maybe five or six years ago, I got a call from Marian McPartland who asked me to sit-in for her as host in on her radio show Piano Jazz, and her guest was an 18 year old kid from New Haven, Connecticut, who has been doing a lot of study with Dr Billy Taylor as well as Hank Jones, so I was very excited to meet him. [When I heard him play] I realised he had the full circle in the jazz piano language – not only the traditional side, but he has also spent a lot of time listening to Vijay Iyer, Orrin Evans, Ethan Iverson and Jason Moran and people like that, so I was very impressed with his vast knowledge of keyboard language. Shortly after I met him we started working together on a semi-consistent basis, he started to sit-in for Peter Martin in my quintet Inside Straight when Peter was unavailable, and at some point I just decided it may be interesting to start a trio with this guy. So Christian Sands is the main reason why I started the trio.

You’re 41, and already you are being called an exemplary mentor for young musicians. Is this a role you have consciously undertaken, or, as I suspect, it just happened?

Yes, it’s not been a title I tried to attain, it just happened, if you’ve been in a certain business a long time and you have got people who are younger than you coming up, the next generation, you’re automatically thrust into that role as mentor and teacher. I don’t think it has anything to do with age; it has to do with experience.