The Second Half of ’25 is Under Way!
Our team at Signature Cruise Experiences is back at work after our annual mid-year break and the countdown is officially on – we’re just over 60 days away from the highly-anticipated Journey of Jazz ’25! This sailing marks the debut of the Journey of Jazz program and also represents our first West Coast cruise in nearly a decade.
What makes this cruise especially fascinating is the unique composition of our guests. While 34% are first-time cruisers – a typical number for a new sailing – the returning guests come from a wonderfully diverse mix of our other programs. Nearly equal representation comes from The Jazz Cruise, The Smooth Jazz Cruise, Blue Note at Sea and Botti at Sea.
Whether it’s the stellar lineup, the engaging itinerary or the late-summer timing, it’s clear that Journey of Jazz ’25 is striking a chord across our jazz-loving communities!
In This Edition of Jazz Notes
In this edition of Jazz Notes, our jazz consultant, Lee Mergner, will be sharing insights on Ron Carter, Boz Scaggs and Christian McBride’s Remembering Ray Brown ensemble. Michael Lazaroff will bring you up to date with the latest Christian McBride’s World at Sea video as well as The Smooth Jazz Cruises‘ 20 year association with Jonathan Butler.
Christian McBride’s World at Sea
Christian McBride: Check Out the New Video
Everyone in the world of jazz knows Christian McBride. He is one of the most popular and talented musicians, arrangers, producers and personalities in the genre. One of his superpowers is his ability to perform in and with various ensembles and configurations, as well as taking on the music of the world!
When he announced that he was doing a cruise, many fans were wondering which path of performance and music would he present. With so many choices, how would he program the cruise?
We should have known the answer. In fact, his response was the only possible result for Christian McBride. He is doing it all! His cruise will provide more hours of music and entertainment than any sailing we will have in ’26. As Christian says, “go big or don’t go at all.” Presenting the cruise in words is difficult, so we asked Christian to let us film him as he heaps praise on a banner group of 75 top musicians and vocalists.
Remembering Ray Brown….A McBride Class
One group that Christian will bring on McBride’s World at Sea that is particularly meaningful to him is the Remembering Ray Brown Trio, featuring Benny Green and Greg Hutchinson and honoring one of his mentors and heroes. “Ray was like a second father to me,” Christian explained. “I think most people who played with Ray Brown felt that way about him. In the early ‘90s, Ray sort of resurged his career as a talent scout for the younger generation. He hired Benny Green and Greg Hutchinson. He then went to hire Geoffrey Keezer, Karriem Riggins and Larry Fuller. He wound up being a mentor to Diana Krall. I was fortunate to be one of his musical kids.”
The first time Christian had a chance to hear Ray play, he was a freshman in high school in Philadelphia. “I was becoming very serious about learning how to play the bass and studying jazz,” he said. “So I went out and bought two of Ray’s records, This Is Ray Brown, and The Red-Hot Ray Brown Trio, with [pianist] Gene Harris and [drummer] Mickey Roker, recorded live at the Blue Note. Needless to say, I was floored. There’s just something about the way Ray plays: the sound, his time, his choice of notes.”
Several years later, Christian met Brown when the legendary bassist came to hear him perform a late-night set in a duo with Green. “I came into this joint late and they played for me, just for me,” Brown told Robert Doerschuk. “I was impressed with both of them. Benny wound up playing in my band later.” The two became close friends and subsequently performed and recorded together, along with fellow Brown acolyte, John Clayton, in a group called SuperBass.
Christian attributes Brown’s gifts to a combination of style and power. “Ray Brown was all about the ‘grease,’ as he used to say,” Christian explained. “The grease is where the flavor is. Ray was one of the very few bass players where drums seem superfluous, because his beat was so strong. I would talk to various drummers who played with Ray: Grady Tate, Jeff Hamilton, Greg Hutchinson, Karriem Riggins. And they all said that it was a major adjustment to play with Ray. They said that sometimes Ray could be too strong, to the point where they would play the drums and they would look over him and go, ‘Why am I here? You don’t need me.’ When Ray Brown would play a bass line, you got this feeling of a piston driving – poom, poom poom, poom. Every single note was full throttle. Some of the guys that knew Ray and loved Ray used to laugh, because Ray never really knew how to take his foot off the gas.”
In the years since Brown’s passing in 2002, Christian has regularly played shows with Green, Hutchinson, Jeff Hamilton, John Clayton and others to honor their hero and mentor. “The trio with Benny and Greg has turned out to be a pretty steady working trio,” he said. “So we just actually gave it a name and I’m really excited to bring them on the cruise.”
– Lee Mergner
Botti at Sea ’26
Boz Scaggs: Renaissance Man of Blues, R&B and Pop
When Boz Scaggs’ hit record Silk Degrees came out in 1976, it seemed to many people that he had come out of nowhere as an overnight success. But, in fact, he came out of a lot of places: Texas where he was raised, Madison, WI where he went to college and played in bands with childhood friend Steve Miller and San Francisco where he, along with Miller, refined his distinctive blend of blues, R&B, rock and pop. And his success in 1976 with hits like “Lowdown” and “Lido Shuffle” didn’t happen overnight, but rather was the result of playing in bands since 1959. Bands with names like The Marksmen, The Ardells, The Fabulous Knight Trains, The Wigs and The Other Side, none of which broke through to commercial success.
His initial success would come in the ‘70s as a solo artist. After releasing six albums as a leader, the singer-songwriter’s collaboration on Silk Degrees (with studio musicians who would later form the popular band Toto) was fortuitous for both. Toto came together as a band after touring with Boz and their sophisticated mastery of both funk and pop during the recording gave Boz’s album a (pun intended) silken sheen and result in a multi-platinum sales. Boz would go on to record more hit singles and albums over the years, even with a nearly decade-long hiatus from recording during the ‘80s. He’s been a headliner at theaters and festivals for more than four decades.
Although his music is firmly grounded in his R&B and blues roots, in 2003 Boz released an album of jazz standards, But Beautiful, which went to #1 in the jazz charts. Later in 2008, he recorded an album, Speak Low, which he described as “a sort of progressive, experimental effort…along the lines of some of the ideas that Gil Evans explored.”
For more than 30 years, Boz owned a renowned music club in San Francisco called Slim’s which closed in 2020 due to the pandemic. A true renaissance man, Boz and his wife also owned and operated a vineyard in Napa Valley, where they made wines throughout the ’00s. However, a devastating wildfire in 2017 destroyed his house, vineyard and personal belongings.
His extracurricular activities aside, it’s his music that will be the main attraction for guests of the West Coast edition of Botti at Sea, on which Boz will join fellow headliners Elvis Costello, Melody Gardot, Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle, and of course, our host, Chris Botti.
– Lee Mergner
The Jazz Cruise ’26
Ron Carter’s Detroit Roots
Most jazz fans know about Ron Carter’s illustrious long career, punctuated by his celebrated tenure with the great Miles Davis Quintet (along with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams), as well as his years as the leader of his own bands. But, they may not know about his musical roots in Detroit: a city that has produced a host of jazz greats, including Hank, Thad and Elvin Jones, Gerald Wilson, Milt Jackson, Donald Byrd, Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Burrell and Joe Henderson.
Born in Ferndale, Michigan, Ron chose the cello as his first instrument (his sister chose the bass). The Carter siblings, all immersed in music lessons, formed a family string quartet and for his part, Ron loved listening to the Bach Cello Suites. As 9th grader, he was first chair cello at Lincoln High School. In 1952, Ron entered Cass Technical High School, the famous Detroit public prep school that would produce so many of the aforementioned jazz greats. “You had to audition to get in, pass an exam and maintain a certain grade level to stay there,” he told Sharon Pendara of In The Trove. “It was like a junior college. Music students had to be in everything: I played alto clarinet in the band; tenor saxophone in the marching band; sang in the choir, man, it was a complete music program.”
The bassist Paul Chambers (who would play with another of Miles Davis’ great quintets) initially held the bass chair at Cass, but left school early to go to New York City, presenting Ron with an opportunity, albeit on a different instrument. “Paul left open a bass chair, so I filled it,” Ron explained. He immersed himself not only in mastering a new instrument, but also in learning jazz.
“In those days, all the frat houses had jazz bands play on the weekends,” he said. “I’d been practicing classical my whole life, so I understood scales. I studied harmony and theory at Cass, so I wasn’t a stranger to how a jazz band played harmonically. I played Bach chorales for orchestra, but we played those in half the speed as a jazz tune. I had to acquire a language for playing faster tempos with jazz. The bass lines themselves weren’t complicated, but, because they came faster than I was used to, I couldn’t think quickly enough to play the right notes that would work.”
He ended up auditioning for the noted Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, where he received a four-year scholarship for classical bass. While at Eastman, he started working around town as a jazz bassist, backing artists like Sonny Stitt and opening for jazz stars such as Horace Silver, Dizzy Gillespie, Carmen McRae and Oscar Peterson. “They assured me that New York welcomes guys who can play,” he told Pendara.
Indeed, Ron Carter could play at a high level then and for the next 70 years. We’re looking forward to Ron’s debut on The Jazz Cruise ’26.
– Lee Mergner
The Smooth Jazz Cruise
Jonathan Butler: The Straw the Stirs the Drink
Over the more than 20 years and 34 sailings of The Smooth Jazz Cruise, we have been fortunate to present some of the most amazing performers in the genre: David Sanborn, Bob James, Joe Sample, George Duke, Natalie Cole, Ramsay Lewis, Wayman Tisdale and more. Our current team of Marcus Miller, Boney James, Brian Culbertson, and Candy Dulfer have led the way for most of the past decade.
Great names and even greater performers. Yet, I can name only one artist who performed on the ship with all of them…and many more. From the very beginning of The Smooth Jazz Cruise in ’04, Jonathan Butler has stood as an icon of the program. He has been the catalyst for so much entertainment and music, that he qualifies more than any other performer as “The Straw that Stirs the Drink.”
Blessed with a voice unmatched in this genre, Jonathan can take any tune and make it his. He can sing a standard in calypso or a prayer in R & B. His renditions are honest and singular. Though smaller in stature, when he is singing, you cannot take your eyes off him or pay attention to anything else.
With that talent, comes an endearing and self-effacing manner. This dichotomy is the heart of his beloved Gospel Hours. His faith and reverence are obvious, but so too is his humor and playful manner. In the space of a single song, he can make you think, cry, laugh and pray.
His personal story is of growing up in apartheid South Africa, literally dirt poor, and using his talents to become that country’s rarest of all entertainers, a black man heralded by whites. Then off to New York at a very young age to launch a career that continues today.
No performer has performed on The Smooth Jazz Cruise more than Jonathan Butler. Not hard to figure out why.
Michael Lazaroff
Executive Director
Signature Cruise Experiences
Signature Cruise Experiences’ Programs
JOURNEY OF JAZZ ’25
Over 98% Reserved !
DAVID FOSTER: THE HITMAN CRUISE
is in Open Booking
CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE’S WORLD AT SEA
is in Open Booking
THE JAZZ CRUISE ’26
is in Open Booking
THE SMOOTH JAZZ CRUISE ‘26.1 & 26.2
are Fully Reserved
THE TOP SHELF COUNTRY CRUISE
is in Open Booking
THE SMOOTH JAZZ CRUISE ‘26.3
is in Open Booking
