\n<\/p>\n
Stewart also shines on \u201cFrancesca,\u201d a new album by the eminent saxophonist David Murray, out later in May. \u201cHe plays my bass lines with such conviction,\u201d Murray said in a phone interview. \u201cI\u2019ve had some great bass players in my life,\u201d he added, naming late masters such as Art Davis, Fred Hopkins and Wilber Morris, \u201cso he\u2019s kind of in the line of their tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n
Growing up, Stewart said, a connection with any jazz tradition felt remote. Raised in Ocean Springs, a small city on Mississippi\u2019s Gulf Coast, he played saxophone early on and later picked up the bass after a high-school friend invited him to join a hardcore punk band<\/a>. A record-shopping trip with his mother, when he happened to pick up the disparate Miles Davis touchstones \u201cKind of Blue\u201d and \u201cBitches Brew,\u201d sent him down a sonic rabbit hole.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember feeling, like, my brain unlocking,\u201d he said. Jazz electrified him, dovetailing with his budding immersion in Black history, encouraged by his mother and grandfather, but he recalled feeling like \u201cnobody for miles and miles and miles even knows this.\u201d<\/p>\n He finally caught up with jazz in Washington, D.C., where he moved in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, transferring from the University of Mississippi to American University. \u201cAll of the dots connected,\u201d he said, \u201cseeing a living, breathing community of improvised music\u201d intertwined with \u201ca strong and proud Black community.\u201d<\/p>\n He soaked up live music in the city\u2019s historic U Street clubs but also plugged into a circle of record collectors and D.J.s \u2014 including Tom Porter<\/a>, Bobby Hill<\/a> and Jamaal Muhammad<\/a>, all fixtures at the jazz-oriented community radio station WPFW, where Stewart began working. Spending time in their company suggested to Stewart that \u201cjust being good, or even great, at your instrument isn\u2019t enough\u201d; the kind of engagement he was looking for, he said, \u201calso takes a stellar knowledge of the music, which is the tradition, which is the sound, the aesthetic.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n