Few musicians in jazz keep as many plates spinning as Christian McBride, and fewer still make it look so effortless. The bassist, composer, bandleader, radio host, and festival director has spent more than three decades as one of the music’s most ubiquitous and beloved figures, and this autumn he is adding two remarkable new chapters to an already towering body of work. On October 30, 2026, McBride and his newest band, Ursa Major, released their long awaited debut album, Points of Light, on Mack Avenue Records. At the same time, the bassist has stepped into the spotlight alongside multi-platinum singer Joan Osborne for Relish Reimagined, a bold jazz reinterpretation of her landmark 1995 album, created with a group of jazz musicians McBride assembled for the project. Together, the two projects make McBride one of the defining names of the November new music season.

What ties these very different records together is a theme that has quietly come to define this stage of McBride’s career. He is using his considerable influence to lift up other voices, whether that means introducing a quartet of rising young instrumentalists to the world or helping a celebrated pop and soul singer rediscover her own songs in a completely new light. It is a role that recalls one of the great traditions in jazz history, and McBride’s label has described this moment, aptly, as his Art Blakey era.

The Art Blakey Model, Updated for a New Century

For more than three decades, drummer Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers functioned as the most important finishing school in modern jazz. Blakey had a genius for spotting young talent, and an astonishing list of future legends passed through his bands on their way to greatness, including Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, and a teenage trumpeter from New Orleans named Wynton Marsalis. The formula was simple and powerful. Blakey provided the platform, the discipline, and the bandstand experience, and his young players supplied the fire and the fresh ideas.

McBride, who came up in an era when he himself benefited from the mentorship of elders such as Freddie Hubbard, Ray Brown, and Benny Golson, has absorbed that lesson deeply. Ursa Major, which he formed in 2022 and has spent several years road testing in clubs and concert halls around the world, is his most direct expression of the idea. He has called it his all in band, a hybrid group that refuses to choose between straight ahead swing, the avant garde, funk, fusion, acoustic, and electric music, folding all of it into a single, cohesive sound. The band has become his primary working group, and Points of Light is its first studio statement.

Meet Ursa Major

The strength of the project lies in the four musicians McBride has chosen to share the stage. Each is a formidable voice in their own right, and together they form one of the most exciting young ensembles working today.

Saxophonist Nicole Glover has emerged as one of the most commanding tenor voices of her generation, a player with a big, muscular sound and a deep grounding in the tradition who also moves comfortably into more exploratory territory. Drummer Savannah Harris has become one of the most sought after rhythm makers on the contemporary scene, praised for her crisp time, her imagination, and her ability to shift seamlessly between swing, groove, and open improvisation. Pianist and keyboardist Mike King brings both acoustic elegance and electric color to the band, a crucial asset for a group that lives in so many stylistic worlds at once. Guitarist Ely Perlman rounds out the lineup with a lyrical, thoughtful approach and a strong compositional voice. McBride anchors it all on both upright and electric bass, steering the music with the authority that has made him one of the most recorded bassists of his era.

Inside Points of Light

To capture the band’s breadth on record, McBride turned to Terrace Martin, the multi-instrumentalist, singer, and producer best known for his work at the crossroads of jazz, R&B, and hip hop. Martin produced the album, with McBride serving as associate producer, and his boundary stretching instincts proved an ideal match for a group built to defy categories. Martin also added a subtle sixth element to the band’s sound, layering atmospheric synthesizer textures that give the album a modern, cinematic sheen without ever crowding the musicians.

The eight track program moves from blistering, harmonically complex straight ahead playing to deep pocket funk, and nearly all of it was written by members of the band, a deliberate choice that puts the spotlight squarely on the young players’ creative voices. Ely Perlman’s “Cows” has already become a fan favorite on the road, frequently landing as a crowd rousing encore. The album’s sole cover, and its lead single, is a fresh take on George Duke’s “No Rhyme, No Reason,” a fitting tribute from McBride, whose love of 1970s soul and jazz funk has always been central to his musical identity. Duke, the keyboard visionary who moved freely between jazz, funk, and pop, is in many ways a spiritual ancestor of everything Ursa Major stands for. The album is available on CD, vinyl, and digital platforms, and fans can explore it through the band’s Points of Light page on Bandcamp.

Joan Osborne and Relish Reimagined

If Points of Light looks to the future, McBride’s collaboration with Joan Osborne looks back in order to move forward. When Osborne released Relish in 1995, it became one of the defining albums of the decade, earning a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year and launching her signature hit, “One of Us,” which was nominated for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Songs such as “St. Teresa” and her searing cover of Bob Dylan’s “Man in the Long Black Coat” showcased a voice of extraordinary range and grit, rooted in soul, blues, and rock and roll.

To mark the record’s thirtieth anniversary, Osborne decided not to simply reissue it, but to rebuild it from the ground up. She went into the studio to re-record the entire album with McBride and a group of jazz musicians he put together specifically for the project, rearranging every song in a jazz setting. Osborne has described the result as a whole different animal, and McBride, by her account, was even more excited about the idea than she was. His arranging approach, steeped in the weight and color of large ensemble jazz while staying true to the blues and Americana roots of her songwriting, gives these familiar songs an entirely new life. For listeners who grew up with Relish on constant rotation, it promises to be a revelatory way to hear old friends, and for jazz fans, it is a reminder of how naturally great songwriting adapts to the music’s harmonic richness. The pair will also take the project on the road, including a run at the Blue Note in Los Angeles in early March 2027.

A Career Without Borders

Both projects fit perfectly within a career that has never respected musical boundaries. Born and raised in Philadelphia, where he fell in love with the smooth soul of the city’s 1970s sound before immersing himself in jazz, McBride arrived on the New York scene as a teenager and quickly became one of the most in demand bassists in the world. Over the years he has recorded and performed with an extraordinary range of artists, from jazz giants such as Freddie Hubbard, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, and Pat Metheny to figures across pop, soul, and classical music, and he has collected a shelf of Grammy Awards along the way.

As a bandleader, he has built a remarkable roster of ensembles, including his trio, the swinging quintet Inside Straight, the adventurous quartet New Jawn, and the Christian McBride Big Band, whose most recent album, Without Further Ado, Vol. 1, paired the orchestra with an all star cast of vocalists including Samara Joy, Dianne Reeves, Cécile McLorin Salvant, José James, Jeffrey Osborne, and Sting with Andy Summers. Beyond the bandstand, McBride serves as artistic director of the Newport Jazz Festival, a role he inherited from the festival’s legendary founder George Wein, and as artistic director of the TD James Moody Jazz Festival at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, where his big band has long served as house band for the annual gala. He is also a familiar voice to radio listeners as host of NPR’s Jazz Night in America and his own SiriusXM program, The Lowdown.

That breadth is precisely what makes this November so compelling. In one season, McBride is introducing a new generation of jazz stars to the world, reimagining a classic of 1990s pop alongside one of its most distinctive singers, and continuing to serve as one of the music’s most effective ambassadors. For listeners, the message is clear. Jazz is not a museum, and its future is in very good hands.