Pianist, composer, and bandleader Christian Sands is one of the protagonists of the contemporary jazz scene. Wynton Marsalis has called him “a jazz star of the future”. His latest album is “Christmas Stories”, the fifth one for Mack Avenue.
He’s young (34 years old), but he has already made his name as one of the most talented artists of his generation. A pianist with impeccable technique and elegant phrasing, which owes nothing to virtuosity just for the sake of it, Christian Sands has become famous on the jazz scene as a pianist of the big band and the Christian McBride Trio, who has been his mentor, together with an “éminence grise” like Billy Taylor. On records, Sands has been active since the early 2000s with a few releases to his name, and he has been recording for Mack Avenue since 2017. His records show Sands’ ability to build well-structured products by following a conceptual thread that is not a mere assembly of songs. His penultimate album, “Be Water”, is an example of that. The “thread”, in this case, is the water. He has participated in other artists’ projects, such as an album by Ben Williams (the bass player in Pat Metheny’s Unity Band) and collaborated with Gregory Porter and Ulysses Owens.
The pianist from New Haven has found his precise place in the contemporary jazz scene. His musical culture and knowledge of jazz history allow him to maintain a solid bond with the roots; at the same time, Sands is an artist who is focused on the future and is convinced that jazz cannot linger on the patterns of the past.
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Christian Sands Trio
- Christian Sands, piano
- Yasushi Nakamura, double bass
- Ryan Sands, drums
