JAS has enhanced and grown the all-scholarship JAS Academy (founded in 1996), through a new collaboration between JAS and the prestigious Frost School of Music at The University of Miami. The 2019 JAS Academy will be under the direction of JAS Academy Artist Director Christian McBride, working in tandem with Frost Dean Shelly Berg and Program Director Chuck Bergeron. The Frost School of Music has become a nationally recognized program noted for its focus on producing successful musicians trained not just in performance but in the business of music in the 21st century. 

About Christian McBride:
It’s not simply his abundant virtuosity that has made Christian McBride the most in-demand bassist of his generation. McBride consistently combines his deft musicianship with an innate ability to communicate his enthusiasm to an audience—a warm showmanship that transforms his own passion into infectious joy. Any time that McBride steps into the studio or onto a stage he plays what could be called “people music,” but it’s a particularly apt title for the second release by his hard-swinging acoustic quintet Inside Straight. Four years after Kind of Brown, the band’s acclaimed debut album, People Music delivers a more road- tested, “lived-in” Inside Straight, able to dig deep while projecting that ebullient vigor that has become McBride’s trademark.