Christian Sands
PROJECTS:
QUARTET
Christian Sands — Steinway Artist and five-time Grammy Nominee — is an emerging jazz force. His abundant piano technique perfectly matches his conception, accomplishing a much deeper musical goal: a fresh look at the entire language of jazz. Whether it’s stride, swing, bebop, progressive, fusion, Brazilian or Afro-Cuban, Sands develops the past while providing unusual and stimulating vehicles for the present… and for the future. He expresses himself through an extensive vocabulary of patterns, textures and structures, all the while maintaining a strong sense of understatement, sensitivity, taste and swing.
Jazz history is filled with stirring torch songs and ballads — brilliant expressions of suffering after love has gone awry. The jazz record shelf even contains some classic album-long explorations of melancholy. But it’s hard to find precedent in pianist Christian Sands’ new Embracing Dawn, his fifth full-length effort for Mack Avenue Records. Embracing Dawn trails 2023’s acclaimed Christmas Stories and 2020’s GRAMMY-nominated Be Water. Following that album’s release, the New York Times commented, “Equipped with a crisp but forceful touch, he seems always to be flowing in new directions, integrating elements of prog rock, gospel and Western classical into a forward-tumbling jazz conception.” Embracing Dawn furthers Sands’ uniquely cultivated jazz language, where agile post-bop meets soulful bluesy tinges and gorgeous swells of strings. Sands’ love of classical orchestration, he explains, is rooted in his lifelong obsession with film.
Since arriving on the scene, Sands has shared the stage with such jazz luminaries as Wynton Marsalis, Dianne Reeves, Shelia E, Warren Wolf, Tia Fuller, Gary Burton, Stefan Harris, Terri Lyne Carrington, Jason Moran, Geri Allen, Ben Williams, Randy Brecker, Steve Johns, Avery Sharpe, James Moody, Bill Evans (sax), Russell Malone, Terence Blanchard, Louis Hayes, Patti Austin, Marcus Baylor, Craig Handy, Carl Allen, Kirk Whalum, and Wycliffe Gordon, as well as iconic cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
The power and prowess of his playing has taken him from the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to the world renowned Newport Jazz Festival, Detroit Jazz Festival, to New York’s celebrated jazz clubs such as the Village Vanguard, Jazz Standard, Blue Note and Dizzy’s Club; to international jazz clubs all over the world. Sands was Artist in Residence at the Monterey Jazz Festival from 2020-2022, Creative Director of Octave Music - Erroll Garner Estate from 2017-2021, and Musical Director of the Monterey Festival Band On Tour from 2019-2022.
Sands invents and re-invents himself with sonorities which define each moment, rhythms which impel his music forward, structures which are surprising and fascinating — and never for a moment un-musical. He personifies the rising musicality and spiritual aspirations of a singularly gifted musical soul. “To whom much is given, much is expected.” Christian Sands doesn’t disappoint.
PRESS:
“When I first met Christian in 2009, it marked a seminal moment in my career as a bandleader. He was the FIRST young musician I’d met who had the drive, passion and skill of my peers like Roy Hargrove, Eric Reed, Greg Hutchinson and Antonio Hart. He’s only worried about being the best musician he can possibly be. He’s the ultimate professional”
Christian McBride
“…having successfully made the case for his breadth of style, Sands is free to follow his music where it leads.”
NPR
“…Christian Sands plays with a restrained touch and a rolling command across the entire keyboard.”
The New York Times
“Sands is skilled, soulful and melodic…”
VICE
