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Christian McBride makes long-awaited return to Philly at the Clef Club

'Three years is too long for me not to play in my hometown." So said Christian McBride speaking by phone en route to a gig on Long Island. The impossibly in-demand bassist is almost constantly heading off to another gig.

'Three years is too long for me not to play in my hometown."

So said Christian McBride speaking by phone en route to a gig on Long Island. The impossibly in-demand bassist is almost constantly heading off to another gig.

To be sure, he has appeared on local stages during that time. He took part in the all-star Monterey Jazz Festival 55th Anniversary band at the Merriam Theater early last year, and he sat in with a group of gifted high schoolers from the Thelonious Monk Institute at Chris' Jazz Cafe a year earlier. But the last time McBride led one of his own projects back to his native Philadelphia was in February 2012, when he performed his monumental composition "The Movement, Revisited" at the Annenberg Center.

He'll make up for lost time this weekend, celebrating his homecoming in a big way at the Clef Club. On Friday, he'll play two sets with his big band, and on Saturday, two more with his stellar trio. McBride, 42, finally took the big-band plunge in 2011 with the release of his CD The Good Feeling. Several of the standout soloists from that recording will be on hand this weekend, including saxophonist Ron Blake, trumpeter Freddie Hendrix, and drummer Ulysses Owens Jr. Owens also anchors McBride's trio, which features rising-star pianist Christian Sands. At the Detroit Jazz Festival this year, the trio showed it could keep up with McBride's muscular, vigorous playing, memorably translating Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Triste" into a soulful blend of Rio and Motown.

The shows will also be significant for reuniting McBride with Lovett Hines, director of music education at the Clef Club, who mentored a young McBride at the Settlement Music School. "Mr. Hines should get a monument in Philly," McBride said. "He's a living treasure. The musicians that have come from him over the last 40 years are a royal roll call. I'll do anything for him."

The love and respect between Hines and his former students are manifest in the praise from notable alumni who have come under his tutelage, a list that includes organ great Joey DeFrancesco, saxophonist Jaleel Shaw, and drummer Justin Faulkner. Hines refers to all of them as "my kids," and they affectionately call him "Uncle Love."

For McBride, Hines was important for encouraging his love of jazz and funk, which he continues to unite in his music. His big-band performance will even feature introductions by Danny Ray, longtime emcee and "cape man" for one of the bassist's idols, James Brown. "A lot of teachers try to mold you in their image, but Mr. Hines never did that," McBride said. "He embraced each person's individuality and let them be exactly who they were, and that's something I always admired about him."

"I never wanted the students to sound like me," Hines told me in a 2013 interview. "I wanted them to create their own voice. Chris McBride came to me and he was into James Brown - he's still into James Brown. So I didn't tell him he had to play like Charles Mingus because Mingus is where jazz is. If he had a funk thing, that's where we started from."

The relationship between the two has come full circle, with Hines regularly teaching students from Jazz House Kids, the jazz education program founded by McBride and his wife, vocalist Melissa Walker.

McBride says Jazz House Kids' mission coincides with the Clef Club's, and with Hines' life work. "The appreciation of the performing arts in American culture is at such an all-time low," the bassist said, "it's wonderful to see organizations popping up that are trying to somehow salvage people's sense of creativity and artistic craftsmanship."

CONCERT

Christian McBride Big Band and Trio

7:30 and 10 p.m. Friday (big band) & Saturday (trio), Clef Club of Jazz & Performing Arts,

738 S. Broad St.

Tickets: $30-$55

Information: 215-893-9912, www.clefclubofjazz.org.EndText