StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Spotlight on Christian McBride

This week, we've got some video footage of bassist Christian McBride, who will be in St. Louis from Wednesday, November 18 through Saturday, November 21 to perform with his new band Inside Straight at Jazz At the Bistro.

As McBride explains in a short promotional video made for the band's record label - a clip that, alas, has had the embedding feature disabled - Inside Straight was formed as an acoustic jazz group capable of playing the famous NYC club the Village Vanguard, which eschews the electrified music offered by some of McBride's other ensembles.

Inside Straight's first CD Kind of Brown came out earlier this year, and they've followed up with a series of live dates in NYC and on the road, including the November week that will mark their St. Louis debut. Because the group is relatively new, there's not a whole lot of video available of them online, save for today's first clip which features them playing McBride's tune "Brother Mister."

In addition to the leader on bass, the lineup for this gig included Warren Wolf (vibes) and Steve Wilson (alto sax), both of whom played on the CD, plus Ulysses Owens. Jr. on drums and St. Louis' own Peter Martin on piano, replacing Carl Allen and Eric Reed, respectively. Though he didn't play on the CD, Martin has been on many of the subsequent Inside Straight gigs, and will be at the piano for their St. Louis run.

Down below, there's a clip of McBride demonstrating his technique with a solo on the Ornette Coleman tune "Turnaround," taken from a gig a few years back with Joshua Redman, Pat Metheny and Brian Blade. The final video is a short biography of the bassist from the series Philly Jazz.