[Cover photo credit to Evelyn Freja]

11x Grammy Award-winning bassist, composer, and bandleader Christian McBride has announced Points of Light, the debut album from his newest ensemble Ursa Major. The group features a lineup of Jazz musicians including saxophonist Nicole Glover, guitarist Ely Perlman, pianist Mike King, and drummer Savannah Harris.

Produced by Terrace Martin (Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock), Points of Light will be released on October 30th, 2026 via Mack Avenue Records. Alongside the announcement, McBride has released his rendition of George Duke’s “No Rhyme, No Reason”, with soundscapes and vocoder from Terrace Martin.

Over the years, Christian McBride has led a number of bands, from the vintage acoustic Jazz of Inside Straight and the swing of the Christian McBride Big Band, to the classic rhythm section sound of the Christian McBride Trio, the experimental New Jawn, and his Civil Rights opus The Movement Revisited.

But McBride missed the freedom of a band that could weave together those different directions. So in 2022, he began assembling the quintet that came to be known as Ursa Major.

McBride explains:

I had been itching to put together a new band, what I like to call a ‘hybrid band,’ for some time. I didn’t know at first what form that band would take, but I knew that it had to be a young band.

Ursa Major’s debut album, Points of Light, has a title that reflects the “luminous individuality McBride sees in his bandmates.”

For the album’s sonic direction, McBride called in multi-instrumentalist, singer, rapper, and Producer Terrace Martin, who captured the band’s live feel in the studio before adding a layer of studio tweaks alongside Grammy-winning Producer and multi-instrumentalist Quintin Gulledge. Gulledge incorporated synths, keyboards and vocoder.

The album consists of original contributions from every member of the band, with the only cover, George Duke’s 1992 single “No Rhyme, No Reason”, arising spontaneously from conversations in the control room. 

McBride concludes:

This album is basically an extension of what we’ve been doing live for the last four years. It’s been fun to watch a band develop and grow and progress when everything is so wide open. They don’t say no to anything, which is a wonderful thing.

Christian McBride & Ursa Major Tour Dates:

Sep. 16-18: Tokyo, Japan – Blue Note Tokyo

Sep. 19: Takasaki, Japan – Takasaki City Theatre

Sep. 21: Kanazawa, Japan – Kanazawa Jazz Street Festival @ Akabana Concert Hall

Sep. 22: Noto, Japan – Ishikawa Nanao Art Museum – Art Hall

Sep. 24: Osaka, Japan – Billboard Live

Sep. 28-29: Athens, Greece – Gazarte

Sep. 30: Istanbul, Turkey – AKM İstanbul

Oct. 1-2: London, UK – Ronnie Scott’s

Oct. 4: Utrecht, Netherlands – TivoliVredenburg

Oct. 5: Heidelberg, Germany – Enjoy Jazz Festival

Oct. 6: Zurich, Switzerland – Moods

Oct. 7: Nancy, France – Nancy Jazz Pulsations

Oct. 21: Boston, MA – Berklee PAC

Oct. 22: Amherst, MA – Bowker Auditorium @ UMASS

Oct. 23-25: Richmond, VA – Modlin Jazz Fest

Oct. 26: Greensboro, NC – UNCG School of Music

Oct. 29: Athens, GA – UGA

Oct. 30: Palm Beach, FL – Glazer Hall