Christian McBride takes a Sunday matinee at NJPAC on Nov. 22

The bassist and James Moody Jazz Festival advisor plays a 2 p.m. show at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center on the final day of this year's festival.

There's a particular kind of Newark Sunday afternoon that happens every November: coats on the backs of seats in Prudential Hall, a few thousand people who came for jazz in daylight, and the festival winding down. This year Christian McBride gets that slot.

Christian McBride plays the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on Sunday, Nov. 22, with a 2 p.m. start. The date was announced Oct. 28, and tickets are through NJPAC. The hall holds 3,352, which tells you how much pull McBride has in this building.

The timing isn't an accident. Nov. 22 is the last day of the 2026 TD James Moody Jazz Festival, which runs Nov. 6 through 22 at NJPAC, and McBride is the festival's advisor, as BroadwayWorld reported when the lineup was unveiled in August. He's been the public face of jazz programming at NJPAC for years, and a Sunday matinee on the closing day is the kind of booking a festival gives the person whose fingerprints are all over it.

According to festival listings, McBride's Nov. 19 and Nov. 22 dates at NJPAC are with the New Jersey Symphony under conductor Eric Jacobsen, on a program built around George Duke's *Dark Wood: Bass Concerto for Christian McBride*, a piece written for him, plus McBride's own orchestral work, *Fried Bacon*. Check the program on NJPAC's site before you go, but if that holds, this is a rare chance to hear the most in-demand bassist in jazz front and center with an orchestra behind him rather than a trio or big band.

A Sunday matinee on the closing day is the kind of booking a festival gives the person whose fingerprints are all over it.

It's a busy stretch for him at the arts center. On Sunday, Nov. 15, McBride hosts Bruce Hornsby for an intimate performance and conversation, another festival booking, per BroadwayWorld. That one's this coming Sunday, so if you want both, plan now.

McBride's range is the reason he can play every one of these roles. He leads a big band that showed up on network TV last fall, when New Jersey Stage noted the Christian McBride Big Band's performance on *Jimmy Kimmel Live* in October 2025. Two months later, the same outlet reported a two-week residency at the Village Vanguard, the Greenwich Village basement where a stand like that still counts for something. He's also been touring with his band Ursa Major, with stops this year like the Reser in Beaverton, Oregon.

For North Jersey, though, he's something closer to a neighbor. His work with NJPAC and with the Montclair-based education nonprofit Jazz House Kids, which held a fundraising roast of him with the arts center according to NJArts.net, has made him part of the civic furniture here.

So go on the 22nd. Take the train into Newark Penn, walk over to the hall, and catch the man who programs this festival closing it out on the bass.

Sources: NJPAC Unveils Star Studded Lineup for 2026 TD James Moody Jazz Festival (BroadwayWorld) (broadwayworld.com); Christian McBride Big Band performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live (New Jersey Stage) (newjerseystage.com); Christian McBride has two-week residency at Village Vanguard (New Jersey Stage) (newjerseystage.com); Christian McBride to be 'roasted' at NJPAC/Jazz House Kids fundraiser (NJArts.net) (njarts.net); Christian McBride & Ursa Major (The Reser) (thereser.org); NJPAC tickets (njpac.org); JamBase show listing (jambase.com)