Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Southern California Fires Hit the Jazz Community
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
Christian Sands is among the 25 artists DownBeat thinks will help shape jazz in the decades to come.
(Photo: Anna Webber)When pianist Christian Sands titled his latest Mack Avenue album Be Water, he had no idea how appropriate its metaphor for adaptability would be. “There are different challenges with everything, and you just have to remind yourself to be ready, and to prepare yourself as much as possible,” he said. “I did not know that 2020 was going to put that to the test, but here we are.”
Like most jazz musicians, Sands has seen his bookings reduced to a trickle, but he has done some livestreamed performances.
“I went on the road with Christian McBride in my senior year of college,” Sands, 31, said via phone from Stamford, Connecticut. “So, this is the longest I’ve actually been home since then.” It hasn’t quite been time off, though, because Sands has been working. He’s been practicing, performing online and putting serious thought into the evolution of his artistry.
“Before, I was always on the road and always performing, which is great,” he said. “But you don’t really get a moment to improve the performance. I mean, you might say, ‘OK, tomorrow, let’s try doing this with the tune.’
“But how do we present the tunes? How do we really entertain people? Now that I’m home, I can take this time to work on different things.”
Like most artists nowadays, Sands can’t help but be influenced by the nightly news.
“As far as 2020, and having to be like water whether we like it or not, it’s put us through a lot of different things,” he said. “There are things that are making us more aware—I mean, George Floyd. Now is the time to be proactive. I’ve been more on the sidelines of things, and part of that was the notion of, ‘Can I do this? How do I do this? How do I go about this the right way?’”
Sands explained that he has benefited from time spent online. “All the Zoom meetings I’ve had to do have actually made me more comfortable speaking onstage,” he said. “I’m a very private person, but now that I’ve been doing shows in my living room, and having to be intimate with the fans, there’s this connection. Now, I have a chance to really create performances.
“My goal is to create experiences when you come to see me,” he added. “I mean, you already get one, but now it’s going to be more of an experience. Like Christian McBride says, ‘We want you to leave feeling full.’” DB
This story originally was published in the November 2020 issue of DownBeat. Subscribe here.
Gerald and John Clayton at the family home in Altadena during a photo shoot for the June 2022 cover of DownBeat. The house was lost during the Los Angeles fires.
Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
“She said, ‘A lot of people are going to try and stop you,’” Sheryl Bailey recalls of the advice she received from jazz guitarist Emily Remler (1957–’90). “‘They’re going to say you slept with somebody, you’re a dyke, you’re this and that and the other. Don’t listen to them, and just keep playing.’”
Feb 3, 2025 10:49 PM
In the April 1982 issue of People magazine, under the heading “Lookout: A Guide To The Up and Coming,” jazz…
The Old Country: More From The Deer Head Inn arrives 30 years after ECM issued the Keith Jarret Trio live album At The Deer Head Inn.
Jan 21, 2025 7:38 PM
Last November, Keith Jarrett, who has not played publicly since suffering two strokes in 2018, greenlighted ECM to drop…
“With jazz I thought it must be OK to be Black, for the first time,” says singer Sofia Jernberg.
Jan 2, 2025 10:50 AM
On Musho (Intakt), her recent duo album with pianist Alexander Hawkins, singer Sofia Jernberg interprets traditional…
“The first recording I owned with Brazilian music on it was Wayne Shorter’s Native Dancer,” says Renee Rosnes. “And then I just started to go down the rabbit hole.”
Jan 16, 2025 2:02 PM
In her four-decade career, Renee Rosnes has been recognized as a singular voice, both as a jazz composer and a…
