Christian McBride Quotes

"The active jazz scene bled into what became the "Philadelphia era" and the "national era" of soul music, which hit their peak right around the time I was born -- 1972. Billy Paul had his first major hit with “Me & Mrs. Jones.” The O'Jays had “Back Stabbers.” Man, there was lots of stuff goin’ on. Hal Melvin and the Blue Notes, with a young Teddy Pendergrass as their lead singer. So, that went all the way through the ‘70s. Then, toward the late ‘70s, Grover Washington started getting gold records, and the jazz scene resurfaced in Philly. There was always lots of stuff going on. That was a really great place to grow up. In the early ‘80s, when the Philadelphia “international” scene started to die out, Grover became the national hero of Philadelphia. Then Pieces of a Dream came out. They emanated out of Grover’s band. They really were hot in the early ‘80s. By the time I graduated from high school, little did I know that half of the graduating class was going to turn out to be superstars -- Boyz II Men; Ahmir Thompson, who’s better known to the hip-hop world as ?uestlove -- he runs the group called the Roots; organist Joey De Francesco, my good buddy; guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel; and Amel Larrieux, who used to sing with Groove Theory, who now has her own thing happening in the R&B world. There was so much stuff going on in Philly growing up." - Christian McBride

source: digitalinterviews.com