email from a personal hero

If you don't know who Christian McBride is let me catch you up. He's probably the baddest bass player living younger than 50. He's been at the forefront of the jazz scene since the early 90s when he moved to New York. For the past few years he's been leading his own band, they blend elements of jazz, R&B, soul, and fusion and are doing some things that no one else in jazz does. That's my take anyway. It's probably easy to see that he is a favorite of mine and a tremendous influence on me, my bass playing, and my music.

I actually know Christian. He was a guest artist both years I attended the Henry Mancini Institute and I have seen him live most every time he's come through LA. I haven't spoken to him in a few years, then yesterday out of the blue I get an email from him. How friggin' cool is that? He had stumbled upon my website and said it looks great and he was proud of what I'd done and he wants to hang when he comes through LA in April.

If I were a basketball player that would be like Kobe Bryant saying he wanted to shoot around with me next time we saw each other ... In my world anyway.

Just had to share that one.

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Published:
at 5:08 PM on Wednesday, February 01, 2006
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6 comments:

  1. KHM 7:37 PM

    That's pretty freakin' cool, all right!

    I continue to get rave reviews on your cd from my good music buddies. Calvin, probably the most informed in jazz of my musicy friends actually said that he'd made several copies of the disc I gave him so that he had a copy at every player in his house and car---he really likes it.

    Dude--I can't believe you're going to hang with Christian McBride. You are SO on your way.

     
  2. Anonymous 4:35 AM

    I just hope he comes through when you're home since you do have some outta state gigs on the schedule for April plus your trip with Carrie to Chicago. This will probably even be cooler than jammin with George Clinton in the basement of the Cootie house in Muncie. It's good to be Lyman.

    LYFE Mom

     
  3. Lyman 9:01 AM

    Tell Calvin I'm glad he digs it, copies for every CD player? Now that's a great story.

     
  4. KHM 12:08 PM

    Well, my buddy Calvin is a huge audiophile, as many music fans are so its not at all clear to me why the hell he hasn't bought a network music player and done away with the need for discs all together. He may not even have an MP3 player of any type. I can't imagine ever having to shlep around cds to hear my music again. I may have told you that we refer to Calvin as our excessive friend---so we're not surprised he'd have as many cds as he does players...
    sending you smooches---
    kathy

     
  5. nikki 5:07 AM

    that's got to be so exciting! be sure to post about it after it happens so we can share in the experience.

     
  6. Lyman 7:15 PM

    totally!

     

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