SOUND PROJECTIONS
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
SUMMER, 2017
VOLUME FOUR NUMBER TWO
JOHN COLTRANE
Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:
EARTH WIND AND FIRE
(May 20-May 26)
JACK DEJOHNETTE
(May 27-June 2)
ALBERT AYLER
(June 3-June 9)
VI REDD
(June 10-June 16)
LIGHTNIN’ HOPKINS
(June 17-June 23)
JULIAN “CANNONBALL” ADDERLEY
(June 24-June 30)
JAMES NEWTON
(July 1-July 7)
ART TATUM
(July 8-July 14)
SONNY CLARK
(July 15-July 21)
JASON MORAN
(July 22-July 28)
SONNY STITT
(July 29-August 4)
BUD POWELL
(August 5-August 11)
JASON MORAN
(b. January 21, 1975)
Artist Biography by Heather Phares
Harlem resident Jason Moran brings a distinctly artistic touch to his jazz compositions and piano playing. The impressionistic approach of visual and musical artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Maurice Ravel inspire Moran's playing and writing style, on both his own compositions and his work with jazz contemporaries like Cassandra Wilson, Steve Coleman, Greg Osby, and Stefon Harris. Moran's debut album, Soundtrack to Human Motion, appeared in 1999; Facing Left followed a year later. In 2001 he released Black Stars, which featured his trio, also comprising bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits, joined by saxophone legend Sam Rivers. A year later he took a much different approach on Modernistic, offering an album of solo piano recordings. Since that time, Moran released the live album The Bandwagon in 2003 and Artist in Residence in 2006. Moran returned in 2010 with the trio album Ten. A pair of albums appeared in 2013, Hagar's Song, a collaboration with saxophonist Charles Lloyd, and Refraction - Breakin' Glass, with Trio 3. All Rise: A Joyful Elegy for Fats Waller, a collaboration in part with Meshell Ndegeocello, arrived in 2014. He was a featured soloist in the Boston Modern Orchestra Project's recording of Mason Bates: Mothership, issued in early 2016. That May, he received a Doris Duke Artist Award.
http://www.bluenote.com/artists/jason-moran
JASON MORAN
Recording period between
1997-Present
Jason Moran was born January 21, 1975 in Houston, Texas. He began studying the piano at age 6, but longed to quit the instrument until he first experienced the sounds of jazz legend Thelonious Monk, an experience that renewed his interest in music and established an early role model in his creative development.
Moran went on to attend Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts where he became an active member of the jazz program, playing in the big band and leading a jazz quartet. His aspirations and talents eventually led him to New York City where he continued his education at the Manhattan School of Music, a school to which he was drawn by the prospect of studying with the pianist Jaki Byard, a jazz leftist who became Moran’s teacher for 4 years and a role model for life. It was during this time that Moran also took lessons from other forward-thinking pianists such as Muhal Richard Abrams and Andrew Hill, creative musicians who imparted a profound influence on Moran, and encouraged him to find his own distinct voice.
In 1997, while Moran was still a senior in college, the drummer Eric Harland, a high school classmate of Moran’s, recommended him to saxophonist Greg Osby who was in the process of assembling a band for a European tour. Osby hired Moran based solely on Harland’s description of his playing, and the match proved to be auspicious. The connection between Osby and Moran was present as soon as they hit the bandstand, and Moran has become a fixture in Osby’s touring and recording bands ever since.
Moran made his professional recording debut on Osby’s 1997 Blue Note CD, Further Ado, which brought him to the attention of Blue Note executives who signed the pianist to his own record deal shortly thereafter. The association with Blue Note is fitting, placing Moran in the lineage of innovative pianist/composers whose career beginnings were nurtured by the veteran jazz label, musicians such as Monk, Herbie Hancock and Herbie Nichols.
Moran’s debut recording as a leader, Soundtrack to Human Motion, which found him in the company of Osby, Harland, vibraphonist Stefon Harris and bassist Lonnie Plaxico, was released in 1999 to great critical praise (Ben Ratliff of The New York Times named it the best album of the year). The following year’s Facing Left found Moran stripping down to a trio with bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits, and prompted JazzTimes magazine to declare the album “an instant classic.” Moran augmented the trio for his third Blue Note release, Black Stars, adding avant-garde icon Sam Rivers, who plays saxophone, flute and piano on the recording. Gary Giddins of the Village Voice exclaimed “Black Stars is possibly a Blue Note benchmark, definitely one of the year’s outstanding discs.”
Moran has performed as a sideman with such artists as Cassandra Wilson, Joe Lovano, Don Byron, Steve Coleman, Lee Konitz, Von Freeman, Ravi Coltrane, and Stefon Harris. He was the youngest honoree of the New Work Commission by the San Francisco Jazz Festival. He was also awarded a grant from Chamber Music America’s "New Works: Creation and Presentation" program, which is funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. For these two grants Moran used sampled conversations as vocal triggers. These compositions would be the foundation for many of Moran’s new compositions. Jazziz magazine wrote “Moran is blessed with the courage of his own convictions—part scavenger and part seer, fluent in the cut/paste/splice devices of hip hop production….”
In 2002, Moran released his universally acclaimed solo piano disc Modernistic. The Cork Jazz Festival awarded Moran the 2002 Guiness Rising Star Award. 2003’s The Bandwagon, culled from the trio’s six-day stint at New York’s Village Vanguard, earned the team of Moran-Mateen-Waits a title as “the best new rhythm section in jazz” (The New York Times) and caused Rolling Stone to proclaim Moran “the most provocative thinker in current jazz.”
The Jazz Journalists Association awarded Moran with the “Up-n-Coming Jazz Musician” of 2003. He has appeared on the cover of JazzTimes with Joe Lovano and on the cover of Down Beat with his mentor Andrew Hill. Moran topped the Down Beat Critics Poll in three categories in 2003 and 2004 – Rising Star Jazz Artist, Rising Star Pianist, Rising Star Composer. In 2002 and 2003, the First Run Film Festival awarded Moran “Best Original Score” for Pagan Harlemann’s “Two Three Time” and Chris Dillon’s “All We Know of Heaven”. New York’s Nightlife Awards honored Moran with awards for “Best Jazz Combo – The Bandwagon” and “Best Performance – Solo Piano at The Jazz Standard”.
He has been lecturer/instructor at Banff Center for The Arts (’03,’04), Denmark’s’ Vallekilde Jazz Camp (’03), Skidmore (’00), Manhattan School of Music (’02-’04), The New School (’04) and his alma-mater, HSPVA (High School for the Performing and Visual Arts). In 1994, Moran’s family created HSPVA’s “Moran Scholarship Award,” which is awarded to an outstanding junior and senior in jazz. Moran took over responsibility in 2001 as a commitment to education.
His sixth release on Blue Note, Same Mother, was released in February 2005. This blues based recording adds guitarist, Marvin Sewell, to the Bandwagon. Same Mother is “a reconsideration of the blues that doesn’t depend on clichéd dynamics and song structure” (The New York Times).
In 2005, Moran accepted three separate commissions from three different pre-eminent American arts institutions: Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Dia Art Foundation. Selected movements from the music created for these commissions—RAIN, Milestone, and The Shape, the Scent, The Feel of Things—constitutes the recording, Artist In Residence, which was released in 2006.
In October 2007, Moran debuted the multi-media project In My Mind: Monk at Town Hall, 1959, a celebration of pianist and composer Thelonious Monk in honor of his 90th birthday. Commissioned by Duke Performances, Washington Performing Arts Society, SF Jazz, and Jazz at Symphony Center, In My Mind has been performed throughout the United States and Europe, including a performance at New York’s Town Hall to mark the 50th anniversary of Monk’s legendary concert.
2010 was a momentous year for Moran. He was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship and released the most assured and focused recording of his career thusfar, TEN, which celebrated the 10 year anniversary of The Bandwagon. The album prompted JazzTimes to declare Moran “jazz’s greatest young conceptualist,” adding that he “pierces the bubble around jazz by reconnecting it not only to popular culture but also to the sounds of daily life.”
In 2011, Moran began a fruitful association with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C. where he is now the Artistic Director for Jazz, a role that allows him to develop programming and curate artists for one of the largest jazz programs in the United States, as well as working with the Center’s other programming departments to coordinate programming for multidisciplinary festivals and events.
In the Fall of 2014 Moran will release All Rise: A Joyful Elegy for Fats Waller, a collaboration with the vocalist Meshell Ndegeocello that recasts the music of the legendary jazz entertainer Fats Waller as a modern dance party. The album is the studio culmination of a project that was born onstage at Harlem Stage Gatehouse as the Fats Waller Dance Party in 2011 as part of their “Harlem Jazz Shrines” series.
Jason Moran Plays Thelonious Monk's Town Hall Concert
October 8, 2015
"Thelonious Monk is the most important musician, period," Jason Moran says. He laughs out loud. "In all the world. Period!"
Moran is in a dressing room deep within the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., where he's the artistic director for jazz. He's not really wearing that hat at the moment, though. He's talking as a musician himself — and very personally, at that.
"OK, in my world, he is the most important musician," Moran says. He clarifies: Thelonious Monk was his chief inspiration as a 13-year-old in Houston; Monk was the musician who made him want to be a pianist. "I heard Thelonious Monk in that time when everything about me was transitioning, and it was the thing I could grab on to and focus on through my teenage years that pulled me through that time of wondering about everything that a teenager wonders about."
He's still obsessed with the pianist and composer, as well he ought to be. Monk left such a strikingly distinct body of work and personal style that one could dig deep yet hardly scratch the surface.
A few years ago, Jason Moran developed a tribute concert to Monk. Moran being who he is, it was more than a simple tribute. First, he started at a particular concert held at New York City's Town Hall in 1959 — notable because it featured Thelonious Monk backed by a large ensemble which had rehearsed intently for the date. Then he kept digging. He found audio tapes and photographs from the rehearsals. ("It's how to learn Monk from Monk," Moran says.) He looked into Monk's personal history. And he assembled a new band to do much more than re-create the music from that evening: He wanted players to perform his original arrangements of those tunes, along with a video projection by David Dempewolf.
Jazz Night In America took in a recent performance of Jason Moran's In My Mind: Monk At Town Hall, 1959 at the Kennedy Center. Watch highlights from the concert in our video feature — and on the radio program, hear more music and learn more about Monk's original presentation.
Featuring Jason Moran (piano) with Ralph Alessi (trumpet), Frank Lacy (trombone), Bob Stewart (tuba), Walter Smith III (tenor saxophone), Logan Richardson (alto saxophone), Tarus Mateen (bass), Nasheet Waits (drums). Recorded March 28, 2015 at Eisenhower Theater, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C.
https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/jasonmoran
Since his formidable emergence on the music scene in the late 90s, jazz pianist Jason Moran has proven more than his brilliance as a performer. The Blue Note Records recording artist has established himself as a risk-taker and innovator of new directions for jazz as a whole.
In almost every category that matters—improvisation, composition, group concept, repertoire, technique and experimentation—Moran, and his group The Bandwagon— with bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits— have challenged the status quo, and earned the reputation as “the future of jazz.”
Frequently influenced by the wider world of art as his muse, Moran has found inspiration in edgy 20th century painters like Jean-Michel Basquiat (check out “JAMO Meets SAMO” from Soundtrack to Human Motion, as well as his ongoing series of “Gangsterism” compositions); Egon Schiele (whose painting “Facing Left” provided the eponymous title to Moran's second album); and Robert Rauschenberg, whose chaotic refinement inspired Moran's third album Black Stars, featuring the legendary Sam Rivers.
Moran is currently preparing for the release of TEN, his 10th anniversary album with The Bandwagon, on June 22, 2010. The trailblazing trio has proven to be one of the most enduring and creative piano trios in jazz today. TEN represents their most assured and focused album to date.
Moran's debut recording as a leader, Soundtrack to Human Motion, was released in 1999 to great critical praise. Ben Ratliff of The New York Times named it the best album of the year and the Jazz Journalists Association awarded it “Best Debut Recording.” The following year, Facing Left, established The Bandwagon trio with bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits, and prompted JazzTimes Magazine to declare the album “an instant classic.” Moran augmented the trio for his third Blue Note release, Black Stars, adding avant-garde icon Sam Rivers, who plays saxophone, flute and piano on the recording. Gary Giddins of the Village Voice exclaimed, “Black Stars is possibly a Blue Note benchmark, definitely one of 2000's outstanding discs.”
In 2002, Moran released his universally acclaimed solo piano disc Modernistic, prompting the Cork (Ireland) Jazz Festival to award him the 2002 Guinness Rising Star Award. Preeminent jazz critic Gary Giddins proclaimed it “a benchmark achievement and a profound illustration of his capacity to combine classicism and maverick innovation.”
2003's release The Bandwagon, culled from the trio's six- day stint at New York's Village Vanguard, earned the team of Moran-Mateen-Waits a title as “the best new rhythm section in jazz! —NY Times.” The Jazz Journalists Association awarded Moran with the “Up-n-Coming Jazz Musician” of 2003. Moran topped The Downbeat Critics Poll in three categories in 2003 and 2004—Rising Star Jazz Artist, Rising Star Pianist, Rising Star Composer.
In 2005, his blues homage, Same Mother was released. This same year he received the first ever Playboy Jazz Artist of the Year award. Artist in Residence debuted in 2006 and showcased Moran's signature brilliance with ambitious undertakings. In the span of one year, Moran accepted and recorded three separate commissions from three pre-eminent and very diverse American arts institutions: The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Dia Art Foundation, and Jazz at Lincoln Center.
In 2007, Moran was commissioned to create IN MY MIND: Monk at Town Hall, 1959, the critically-acclaimed multi- media performance investigating Thelonious Monk's famous recording, Monk at Town Hall. IN MY MIND examines Monk's process of creating this seminal concert using audio of conversations with Monk and the arranger Hal Overton.
This personal experience has been transformed into a feature documentary entitled IN MY MIND by director Gary Hawkins. The film premiered at the 13th Annual Full Frame Documentary Festival, and will have a special screening with the New York Public Library in April as part of the Jazz Loft Project exhibition.
Not surprising, the legendary Monk had a pivotal role in influencing young Moran to become a jazz musician. In 1981, at the age of six, the Houston native began studying the piano, but longed to quit until he first heard the sounds of Monk, an experience that established an early role model in Moran's creative development. Moran later honed his musical education at New York's Manhattan School of Music.
Music education still plays a central role in Moran's life. He is on the piano faculty at Manhattan School of Music. He has been lecturer/instructor at Yale University, Dartmouth University, University of Pennsylvania, Eastman School of Music, The Kennedy Center, The New School, New York's Museum of Modern Art, Banff Center for The Arts, Denmarks' Vallekilde Jazz Camp, Skidmore and Stanford Jazz Workshop.
A musician of diverse cultural interests, Moran is a connoisseur of modern furniture design who now exclusively performs in a chair specially built for him by the Danish designer Susanne Forsgreen. He is also a devotee of the painter Jean Michel Basquiat whose work continues to fuel his “Gangsterism...” series of compositions first heard on his debut's instant classic “Gangsterism on Canvas.” That series reappears twice on Same Mother's opening and closing numbers, “Gangsterism on the Rise” and “Gangsterism on the Set,” which correlate stride and dissonance.
Moran has performed and/or recorded with artists Cassandra Wilson, Wayne Shorter, Charles Lloyd, Dave Holland, Marian McPartland, Don Byron, Joe Lovano, Greg Osby, Steve Coleman, Von Freeman, Andrew Hill (duo), Uri Caine (duo), Bunky Green, Sam Rivers, Lee Konitz, Paul Motian, Chris Potter, Jenny Scheinman, Christian McBride, and Stefon Harris.
His ongoing visionary collaborations in the art world have brought him additional fans and respect. Moran's music is in the collections of both the MOMA and Whitney Museum of American Art. He scored a ballet for renowned Alonzo King's LINES Ballet, as well as scoring video works for contemporary American artists Glenn Ligon and Kara Walker. Moran also has worked with pivotal visual/performance artists Joan Jonas and Adrian Piper. A future collaboration with Grammy-nominated neo-soul artist Meshell Ndegeocello—a dance party centered on the music of Fats Waller—will premiere in 2011.
Moran lives in New York City with his wife, mezzo soprano Alicia Hall Moran, and their twin toddlers.
https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/jasonmoran
Jason Moran
Since his formidable emergence on the music scene in the late 90s, jazz pianist Jason Moran has proven more than his brilliance as a performer. The Blue Note Records recording artist has established himself as a risk-taker and innovator of new directions for jazz as a whole.
In almost every category that matters—improvisation, composition, group concept, repertoire, technique and experimentation—Moran, and his group The Bandwagon— with bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits— have challenged the status quo, and earned the reputation as “the future of jazz.”
Frequently influenced by the wider world of art as his muse, Moran has found inspiration in edgy 20th century painters like Jean-Michel Basquiat (check out “JAMO Meets SAMO” from Soundtrack to Human Motion, as well as his ongoing series of “Gangsterism” compositions); Egon Schiele (whose painting “Facing Left” provided the eponymous title to Moran's second album); and Robert Rauschenberg, whose chaotic refinement inspired Moran's third album Black Stars, featuring the legendary Sam Rivers.
Moran is currently preparing for the release of TEN, his 10th anniversary album with The Bandwagon, on June 22, 2010. The trailblazing trio has proven to be one of the most enduring and creative piano trios in jazz today. TEN represents their most assured and focused album to date.
Moran's debut recording as a leader, Soundtrack to Human Motion, was released in 1999 to great critical praise. Ben Ratliff of The New York Times named it the best album of the year and the Jazz Journalists Association awarded it “Best Debut Recording.” The following year, Facing Left, established The Bandwagon trio with bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits, and prompted JazzTimes Magazine to declare the album “an instant classic.” Moran augmented the trio for his third Blue Note release, Black Stars, adding avant-garde icon Sam Rivers, who plays saxophone, flute and piano on the recording. Gary Giddins of the Village Voice exclaimed, “Black Stars is possibly a Blue Note benchmark, definitely one of 2000's outstanding discs.”
In 2002, Moran released his universally acclaimed solo piano disc Modernistic, prompting the Cork (Ireland) Jazz Festival to award him the 2002 Guinness Rising Star Award. Preeminent jazz critic Gary Giddins proclaimed it “a benchmark achievement and a profound illustration of his capacity to combine classicism and maverick innovation.”
2003's release The Bandwagon, culled from the trio's six- day stint at New York's Village Vanguard, earned the team of Moran-Mateen-Waits a title as “the best new rhythm section in jazz! —NY Times.” The Jazz Journalists Association awarded Moran with the “Up-n-Coming Jazz Musician” of 2003. Moran topped The Downbeat Critics Poll in three categories in 2003 and 2004—Rising Star Jazz Artist, Rising Star Pianist, Rising Star Composer.
In 2005, his blues homage, Same Mother was released. This same year he received the first ever Playboy Jazz Artist of the Year award. Artist in Residence debuted in 2006 and showcased Moran's signature brilliance with ambitious undertakings. In the span of one year, Moran accepted and recorded three separate commissions from three pre-eminent and very diverse American arts institutions: The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Dia Art Foundation, and Jazz at Lincoln Center.
In 2007, Moran was commissioned to create IN MY MIND: Monk at Town Hall, 1959, the critically-acclaimed multi- media performance investigating Thelonious Monk's famous recording, Monk at Town Hall. IN MY MIND examines Monk's process of creating this seminal concert using audio of conversations with Monk and the arranger Hal Overton.
This personal experience has been transformed into a feature documentary entitled IN MY MIND by director Gary Hawkins. The film premiered at the 13th Annual Full Frame Documentary Festival, and will have a special screening with the New York Public Library in April as part of the Jazz Loft Project exhibition.
Not surprising, the legendary Monk had a pivotal role in influencing young Moran to become a jazz musician. In 1981, at the age of six, the Houston native began studying the piano, but longed to quit until he first heard the sounds of Monk, an experience that established an early role model in Moran's creative development. Moran later honed his musical education at New York's Manhattan School of Music.
Music education still plays a central role in Moran's life. He is on the piano faculty at Manhattan School of Music. He has been lecturer/instructor at Yale University, Dartmouth University, University of Pennsylvania, Eastman School of Music, The Kennedy Center, The New School, New York's Museum of Modern Art, Banff Center for The Arts, Denmarks' Vallekilde Jazz Camp, Skidmore and Stanford Jazz Workshop.
A musician of diverse cultural interests, Moran is a connoisseur of modern furniture design who now exclusively performs in a chair specially built for him by the Danish designer Susanne Forsgreen. He is also a devotee of the painter Jean Michel Basquiat whose work continues to fuel his “Gangsterism...” series of compositions first heard on his debut's instant classic “Gangsterism on Canvas.” That series reappears twice on Same Mother's opening and closing numbers, “Gangsterism on the Rise” and “Gangsterism on the Set,” which correlate stride and dissonance.
Moran has performed and/or recorded with artists Cassandra Wilson, Wayne Shorter, Charles Lloyd, Dave Holland, Marian McPartland, Don Byron, Joe Lovano, Greg Osby, Steve Coleman, Von Freeman, Andrew Hill (duo), Uri Caine (duo), Bunky Green, Sam Rivers, Lee Konitz, Paul Motian, Chris Potter, Jenny Scheinman, Christian McBride, and Stefon Harris.
His ongoing visionary collaborations in the art world have brought him additional fans and respect. Moran's music is in the collections of both the MOMA and Whitney Museum of American Art. He scored a ballet for renowned Alonzo King's LINES Ballet, as well as scoring video works for contemporary American artists Glenn Ligon and Kara Walker. Moran also has worked with pivotal visual/performance artists Joan Jonas and Adrian Piper. A future collaboration with Grammy-nominated neo-soul artist Meshell Ndegeocello—a dance party centered on the music of Fats Waller—will premiere in 2011.
Moran lives in New York City with his wife, mezzo soprano Alicia Hall Moran, and their twin toddlers.
Interview with Jason Moran
(Originally posted on September 18, 2006. We spoke Saturday night after the gig at the Blue Note. Naturally, the topic is other piano players.)
—
EI: One record I know we can agree on is Money Jungle.
JM: Mmm…
EI: My song is “Fleurette Africaine.”
JM: Yeah. The melody is genius – and it’s got a great bridge. But Mingus is doing this ignorant thing that makes it work. (And you know Ellington didn’t write it.) Tarus never listens to Mingus, but that’s his closest cat: Mingus, at least the way he plays on “Fleurette Africaine.”
EI: There’s also a Richard Davis/Andrew Hill thing between Tarus and you, right? I’m thinking especially of Smokestack.
JM: That’s one of my favorites.
EI: We agree on Pax being a great date, too. What are your favorite Hill records?
JM: Besides Smokestack and Pax, anything of him playing solo! Check his website – there’s some stuff from London that is out of sight. Point of Departure for the writing…and of course Bobby Hutcherson’s Dialogue, where Andrew wrote half the tunes. What about you?
EI: Well, my record is Black Fire.
JM: Yeah!
EI: Did you ever hear that 80’s date with Clifford Jordan, Shades?
JM: No, what is that?
EI: I think you would like it – it’s sort of the most conservative Andrew album, with some killing Jordan. It’s fun to hear Andrew confuse the rhythm section of Rufus Reid and Ben Riley.
JM: Oh! I want to hear that…lemme write that down…
EI: Jaki Byard was your teacher, and you play a song of his every night. I heard that he made his students write a rag.
JM: He made some others do it, but not me. He did make me write a fugue that sure was terrible. He really believed in knowing two- and four-voice counterpoint.
EI: You told me to get the Live at Lennie’s stuff with Joe Farrell. That blues on Vol. One remarkable. The Jaki album that I grew up with is The Jaki Byard Experience, with that extraordinary piano solo on “Evidence.” What else would you recommend?
JM: Out Front with Roy Haynes on drums. He gets to serious compositional stuff there. Oh yeah! And on his solo on “Out Front,” there is classic Jaki misplacement.
EI: I also love his playing on Eric Dolphy’s Outward Bound, like on the slow blues “245” and his comping on “On Green Dolphin Street.”
JM: Yeah! The comping on “Green Dolphin…” His thing was how he touched those notes, not what the notes were. It’s almost like the intervals don’t matter. But the feel is killing!
EI: Once upon a time I transcribed quite a bit of Herbie Nichols.
JM: For me, after Monk, he is the most perfect piano player. I could listen him forever! My bag with him is very deep. His touch, his voicing low in the piano. Jaki’s “Out Front” was a song about Herbie’s touch. The solo piano piece is incredible.
EI: What solo piece?
JM: On Love, Gloom, Cash, Love. It’s called “Infatuation Eyes.” Apparently he wrote it for strippers, but it’s hard to imagine – weird music for that!
EI: I guess I only ever had the Blue Notes. I got the Mosaic box in high school, and I still have it.
JM: How did you know to check him out?
EI: Huh… Well, I guess from the A.B. Spellman book: my local library had a copy of Four Lives in the Bebop Business.
JM: I see. Well, you know, his daughter is a musician. Toyin Spellman-Diaz plays oboe in Imani Winds.
EI: No kidding! I saw Imani Winds play Ligeti earlier this year.
JM: I’m writing a piece for them, actually. A.B. is a nice cat – very approachable.
EI: Well, his book remains one of the best books on the music ever written. There’s a chapter on Cecil Taylor, too. You must be a Cecil fan.
JM: Major. I’ve seen him play a lot. One time was with a Japanese dancer, who was at the opposite end of the street as Cecil. I saw him duo with Max Roach, where Cecil even played a ballad! It was heavy. The best real free jazz I’ve ever seen was Cecil’s quartet at the Iridium. There were no egos involved. Just incredible music.
He came and saw me play, and I had piano at half stick. He said: “Listen! Don’t ever let the motherfuckers put it half stick! You have too big a sound.” He said this to me about my teacher: “I have never met anyone who knew more about the piano than Jaki Byard.” Coming from Cecil, that really means something! Records? Well, I like some of the Blue Notes, and what about that version of “Love for Sale”? What do you like?
EI: There’s a lot, but…you must have heard “Mixed,” “Pots,” and “Bulbs.”
JM: No…
EI: With Ted Curson, Archie Shepp, Lyons, Roswell Rudd, Grimes, Sonny Murray…an Impulse date, only three tunes…half an LP. Early sixties. They are sort of Ellingtonian compositions, and the piano playing is sick.
The late Kenny Kirkland was a real force. For our age group, he was the one.
JM: Yes. He was the guy. The last innovator. He took the Herbie/McCoy thing to the next ship. His sound was big! His chords always had overtones making them sound bigger then they were. I’ll have to play you some of these bootlegs I have of Kirkland with Kenny Garrett – you’d be amazed.
Then Geri Allen was going to be the next thing, but she retreated. It’s one of the mysteries of jazz.
EI: Yeah, she’s playing a lot of Herbie Hancock these days. But I hear that when she plays with Charlie Haden once in a while, she can still play her old way.
JM: I always make sure my students hear her record with Charlie and Paul where they play “Lonely Woman.” I mean, it’s a classic. Also Homegrown and The Printmakers. She is brilliant.
EI: Did you ever see her play with Cox and Pheeroan akLaff?
JM: No.
EI: One of the best shows I ever saw. You’re right, it was supposed to be the next thing.
JM: Maybe she’ll come back someday.
EI: Keith Jarrett.
JM: I would have never fronted for Keith in the past. I mean the stuff with Dewey Redman is great, of course, but I never really checked him out. But last year I paid a lot of money to see his Carnegie Hall show. Really, he might be the living Tatum. Full of soul, and so complex at the same time. He’s really got a language. And as a pianist, he just makes you mad.
EI: Randy Weston.
JM: My moment from him was when Muhal Richard Abrams, Geri Allen, John Hicks, Randy Weston, Andrew Hill, and me all played. Weston was playing full piano: his left hand was a lesson in itself, on something like “Take the A Train.” A great record is the one with The Splendid Master Gnawa Musicians of Morocco, who only chant when someone is sick. Randy Weston plays only at the end, but it is a beautiful record.
EI: Ahmad Jamal.
JM: I saw him here, at the Blue Note. It was the best show I ever saw. The flash and the style and the sound. And how he LED the band. Idris Muhammad was on drums.
I always loved his records. He should be a bigger influence than he is.
EI: I couldn’t agree more. Too many cats just want to blow when they play trio. I guess both of us are students of Ahmad since we are interested not just in blowing, but in creating pieces with atmosphere…
JM: No doubt.
EI: I’m a big Paul Bley guy. Have you checked him out much?
JM: No…I don’t have many of his records, but I love his playing. I’ve met him, and he’s an impressive character. We were on a bill together, and he grilled me with about twenty questions about piano before he went on (I played first). Some of his questions were things I had never thought about!
Then one time I heard some bad stuff on the airline radio – solo piano. It was ridiculous. I was like, “Who is THIS?” Of course, it was Paul Bley.
PBS NEWSHOUR:
TOPICS > Arts
Jason Moran strikes up the band — and a conversation — to enthrall new jazz listeners
June 16, 2014
Jason Moran, one of today's best-known younger jazz musicians, is a true believer that his art form can transport and transform an audience. Now the artistic director for jazz at the Kennedy Center in Washington, the musician has a public platform to share his passion. Chief arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown interviews Moran about his work to bring the jazz experience to more people.
GWEN IFILL: Finally tonight: a major voice in and for jazz.
Jeffrey Brown has our report
JEFFREY BROWN: Pianist and composer Jason Moran is one of today’s best-known younger jazz musicians. Performing solo and with his trio around the world, he’s a true believer that his art form can transport and transform an audience.
JASON MORAN, Artistic Director for Jazz, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts: Well, there’s a power that kind of starts to stir in the body. The molecules start to, start to want to jump around. It has a possibility to change how the body feels, how the mind feels.
And that is something that you can’t quantify. And then, when the music hits the audience, and when it hits the space, the air, it has the possibility to change everything in that person’s being.
JEFFREY BROWN: Now the 39-year-old has a distinctive public perch here at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., where he’s been named artistic director for jazz, with a goal of both preserving a tradition and building new audiences.
It’s a prestigious position previously held by renowned musician and educator Billy Taylor, who died in 2010. It would seem an uphill challenge. Jazz accounted for just 2 percent of overall album sales last year, trailing 10 other genres. But Moran has seen it happen, first in himself. He’d studied classical piano as a child growing up in Houston. Then, just into his teens, he heard a recording by jazz legend Thelonious Monk, and his world changed.
JASON MORAN: I love Mozart, and I love Bach, and Brahms, and — but at 13, I didn’t understand any of that that I was playing. And there was something very pure. And I don’t know. It resonated with me. And Thelonious Monk’s playing, I thought, oh, this has the depth and the simplicity and the rigor that I think makes great art, great music and…
JEFFREY BROWN: Explain that, the depth and the simplicity.
JASON MORAN: Well, if you hear Thelonious Monk play a run that goes from the top of the piano, OK, he has opened up the Grand Canyon with that. He’s the river that’s carved this entire space that we call the Grand Canyon. He does that with one run. He lets you know like what the possibility of the sound of the piano can do.
JEFFREY BROWN: Moran went on to the Manhattan School of Music and made his first album at age 24 on the famed Blue Note label. Seven others would follow, the most recent in 2010. Titled “Ten,” it celebrated the 10th anniversary of his trio, Jason Moran & The Bandwagon. That same year, he earned a MacArthur genius fellowship. Now Moran wants to bring more people in to the jazz experience.
JASON MORAN: I think it’s important that we consider how they can — if they do not have an entryway into the music, how they can make an entryway.
Once you step on stage, the people are actually looking to be transformed. That’s why they showed up, that’s why they spent some money. And great performances do that. And they figure out that balance of how to like grab you and then how to like fling you, let you freefall. And then they catch you.
JEFFREY BROWN: Toward that end, Moran has helped organize a number of public events at the Kennedy Center, including an election night jam in 2012 and a showcase for young artists as part of Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead, an educational program.
At a recent celebration of Blue Note’s 75th anniversary, he performed “Boogie Woogie Stomp” with Robert Glasper. In fact, he’s intent on highlighting the get up and dance aspect of an earlier age of jazz to rev up today’s audience. With that in mind, he’s organized some 30 Fats Waller Dance Parties around the country, honoring the great pianist and composer from the first half of the 20th century.
JASON MORAN: Having a Fats Waller Dance Party is trying to understand how music engages an audience that shows up to actually get down, you know, not sit in a chair, but like let me get down on the floor. And can I make music that can have people do that? So,, really, it’s challenging.
JEFFREY BROWN: A further challenge is to bring music into nontraditional spaces and collaborations with other art forms. In 2012, for example, Moran performed with his wife, soprano Alicia Hall Moran, as part of the Whitney Museum’s biennial exhibition of contemporary art.
JASON MORAN: It’s not just a conversation about jazz that’s important. It’s a conversation about art and arts that are important.
JEFFREY BROWN: The whole thing.
JASON MORAN: The entire thing. And it’s important that the art forms communicate, whether it’s the dance program with the jazz program or the classical program with the opera program, that these conversations becomes fluid.
JEFFREY BROWN: Moran says the jazz conversation will continue with what he calls a series of listening parties, in which he and fellow musicians will join the audience in discussing classic works. His own next work, a new album titled “All Rise: A Joyful Elegy for Fats Waller,” is due out this fall.
Jason Moran: Out Front
9/01/2003
by Nate Chinen
JazzTimes
“Feel free to do what you do,” says Jason Moran as he steps onstage. “I’ve played in enough hotels and restaurants not to be bothered by a little chatter.”
It’s not a standard pre-gig pronouncement for the 28-year-old pianist, whose music usually commands silence and an open ear. But then, this isn’t a standard gig. Moran is playing a solo set at a press reception for the Montreal Jazz Festival, at which he’ll be appearing later in the summer. His audience at the Greenwich Village club Sweet Rhythm-producers, critics and industry folk-chuckles collectively at the wryly permissive note.
Standing at the microphone, Moran fulfills the central- casting archetype of a 1940s film noir: fedora slightly cocked, mustache neatly trimmed, trench coat belted casually at the waist. Like screen icons Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum and Alain Delon, he seems impassive and unknowable, observant and bemused. The chiaroscuro impression continues as he places a glass of red wine atop the piano, slides onto the bench and, without removing either hat or coat, teases out the unmistakable three-note prologue to-what else?-Erroll Garner’s “Misty.” Lacking only a halo of smoke, Moran seems plucked from another time.
The image colorizes as Moran plies his gentle abstractions, stretching but never abandoning the sentimental theme. Eventually he arrives at what seems a conclusive chord, only to shift out of Garner’s tune into something else: James P. Johnson’s “You’ve Got to Be Modernistic,” which inspired the title for Moran’s last album, Modernistic, 2002’s solo piano tour de force. Gradually that jaunty melody, too, grows dreamy and diffuse. A feathery harmonic sequence momentarily evokes “Joga,” the Björk ballad that Moran recorded for 2000’s Facing Left; it actually turns out to be from an intermezzo by Brahms, which the pianist vaguely inhabits for a spell. Then, still with no interruption, he slips into another unconventional vehicle- Afrika Bambaataa’s staccato, retro-futuristic hip-hop anthem “Planet Rock,” which closes the set.
Moran has just covered over a century’s worth of musical territory in barely a half-hour-and so naturally that it seems almost awkward to acknowledge the feat. He himself nods at the applause with just the hint of a grin-no big deal. A self-conscious progressive but hardly a provocateur, the pianist simply seems to be playing his way.
“Feel free to do what you do,” he had said; Moran could just as well have been talking to himself.
“I don’t want to be the average musician. I want to be the man who, 50, 60, 100 years from now, you’re like, ‘Man, he was really on another level. He was trying to come at it from a different perspective.'”- Jason Moran, March 1999
For an artist of uncompromising vision, Jason Moran has received a remarkable measure of critical favor. Each of his four albums on Blue Note has garnered accolades and high praise. Small wonder that Moran likens his career to a fairytale. He was still a senior at the Manhattan School of Music when Greg Osby signed him on for a European tour in 1997; the saxophonist had never heard him play, but drummer Eric Harland (Moran’s high school classmate in Houston) had put in a good word. On tour, Moran and Osby discovered an uncommon musical kinship, and the latter soon became a mentor. It was through this association that the young pianist came to the attention of his record label. “I saw him for the first time with Osby,” recalls Blue Note president Bruce Lundvall. “I scratched my head and said: ‘He’s really good; I’ll have to go back down again.’ They were playing at that time at Sweet Basil [now Sweet Rhythm]. And I came back a couple of nights later. I said, ‘Look, you’ve got to be on Blue Note.'”
Moran wasted no time in recording Soundtrack to Human Motion (1999), an auspicious debut that Osby produced. At roughly the same time, he participated in a band called New Directions, led by Osby and featuring several other youngbloods on the Blue Note roster: vibraphonist Stefon Harris, tenor saxophonist Mark Shim, bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits. In the liner notes to that group’s self-titled album, Osby enthused: “I don’t make a move without Jason. He’s a dynamo.” Moran seemed to earn this praise on the session, contributing four spiky new arrangements of classic Blue Note titles. He also joined Harris, then his roommate in West Harlem, on a crepuscular duet treatment of Sam Rivers’ “Beatrice.”
But it was “Commentary on Electrical Switches” that most clearly augured Moran’s path to come. He dedicated his impressionistic ballad to the pianist Jaki Byard, who died just as New Directions was hitting the road. It was Byard who had drawn Moran to the Manhattan School of Music, and though Moran also studied privately with Muhal Richard Abrams and Andrew Hill, it was Byard who served as his guide. “Commentary,” which finds Moran in compassionate triologue with Waits and Mateen, is a fascinating performance in retrospect-the earliest documentation of a group that would eventually deliver the pianist’s most advanced concepts and most personal statements. Even during this initial encounter, on a track lasting less than three minutes, the trio sounds quite a bit like a band.
The chemistry didn’t go unnoticed. “I basically played with Jason for the first time on that New Directions tour,” remembers Waits. “After the tour was over I listened to one of the recordings. I was like, ‘Wow!’ It was really telling when we as a trio were playing, with the type of things we were doing. It was something special that was happening not only because of the freedom being used, but also the common language between us three. It was unspoken; it was very organic.”
Yet the Bandwagon, the trio that would grow out of this rapport, didn’t coalesce then and there. Moran’s first album actually featured Osby, Harris, Harland and bassist Lonnie Plaxico. The pianist was still working primarily as a member of Osby’s quartet; Waits and Mateen were both in demand elsewhere. In 2000 the three reunited for Moran’s sophomore album, Facing Left; the following year they welcomed distinguished guest Sam Rivers on Black Stars. Both albums were highly and rightfully acclaimed. But the full eruption of collective energies evident on their newest album, The Bandwagon-taped last fall during the trio’s Village Vanguard debut-was still to come.
“Members of the Creative Class engage in work whose function is to ‘create meaningful new forms.'”-Richard Florida, April 2002
Jason Moran still lives in the prewar apartment building of his late-college years, overlooking Riverside Park and the slate-gray Hudson River below. The surrounding neighborhood, with its mix of low-income housing and renovated co-ops, conveys the sense of a place in quiet transition. Cars line the curbs, and residents linger on their stoops-but the chaos of Broadway, one long block east, seems at some remove.
Two days after the Montreal press party, Moran answers his apartment door clad in a Mets T-shirt and faded jeans. He no longer occupies a one-bedroom with Stefon Harris; Moran is two doors down from his old apartment, in a long eight-room unit he shares with his fiancée, the classical soprano Alicia Hall. Their home is an oasis of sleek modern accents, sharp and immaculately clean. (Moran has guests remove their shoes at the door.) In the living room, Bauhaus furniture coexists with a wall of records, art catalogs and vintage magazines. Moran enthusiastically identifies himself with the “New Harlem,” a relatively recent upsurge of creative capital uptown. But he also notes that, having lived here a decade, he might be ready to leave the city for a return to his home base in Houston.
Sinking into an Arne Jacobsen black-leather chair, the pianist describes the evolution of the band dynamic. “It’s gotten stronger, but at the same time stayed real loose. Once we really started to play together, we realized how much we could do with dynamics, how much we could do with time, how much we could do with cues within the music. And how much we could do with repertoire, as far as changing what the jazz repertoire is. We had a lot to say about that, because we all listen to so much different music that it would be silly to keep ourselves confined to playing Thelonious Monk’s music or Tommy Flanagan’s arrangements. We wanted to take it where we thought it could go.”
For the Bandwagon, that destination falls outside the bounds of genre. Their set list can juxtapose Byard, Björk and Brahms without judgment or pause. It’s a strategy uncommon in jazz performance but standard-issue in DJ culture, where turntablists draw upon an endless catalog of sources, blending textures and mixing moods. In fact, hip-hop is the lingua franca of the Bandwagon, in as great a measure as jazz. Moran, Waits and Mateen all grew up during the dawn of the DJ, and Mateen is an active part of the hip-hop community, having worked with the likes of OutKast, Goodie Mob and TLC. So it makes as much sense for the trio to “sample” Afrika Bambaataa (who himself co-opted Kraftwerk’s “Trans-Europe Express” to build “Planet Rock”) as it does to recast a 1930s Ellington tune. As befits a band of this era, their repertoire resists hierarchy and the construct of “authenticity” in favor of new hybrid sounds. “The only reason we played this song ‘Later’ by Duke Ellington,” Moran observes, “was because he had a part in there that I had to sample. Then I got hip to the theme. I wanted to sample him before I wanted to play the song.”
For over a year now, the Bandwagon has begun its sets with a prerecorded collage of sampled sounds. A Bela Bartók chorus collides with a Robert Johnson blues, which in turn leads to spoken-word fragments by, among others, the actor John Gielgud and Minister Elijah Muhammad. (Also in the recorded mix are Moran, Waits and Mateen themselves, each playing his instrument in heated exchange.) Hip-hop advocate Kevin Powell, citing this collage in a recent panel discussion, marveled at its place in a jazz setting: “He literally has a tape that he made in his house. And that’s hip-hop to me.”
For licensing reasons, this MiniDisc intro was cut short for the new The Bandwagon CD. But Moran exercised similar impulses elsewhere on the date. “Ringing My Phone (Straight Outta Istanbul)” features a sampled phone conversation between two women in Turkish. What’s remarkable about the performance is the fact that Moran uses the material not as an accent or supplement, but rather as a compositional blueprint: the trio matches the cadence and tonality of the conversation, essentially note for note. The resulting tune is serpentine and syntactically complex-but somehow free-flowing and organic, tied as it is to human speech.
Unveiling “Ringing My Phone” at the Vanguard last fall, Moran’s crew met with a sharp, collective intake of breath at first-then provoked an exhilarated applause. (“Infospace,” a less engaging piece based on a stock report in Chinese, met with a much more tentative response.) Moran borrowed the transcriptive conceit from the Brazilian composer Hermeto Pascoal and executed it with the help of a grant from Chamber Music America. The songs are literally exercises in translation, across languages, media and cultures. And Moran-whose other pieces in this series utilize Italian, Norwegian, Japanese, Dutch and French-insists that the experiments are less cerebral than communal. “Each person speaking has a melody,” he contends. “Every person in the world.” He adds: “I don’t necessarily know what everybody’s saying on the tapes, but the mood of the voice and how it can be transmitted through music is part of the fun. It really opens us as musicians to entirely new rhythms, and new spatial areas [in which] to play.”
Moran wears this openness as a second skin, and given his background, it’s not hard to see why. Growing up in a comfortably middle-class African-American section of Houston, the pianist was witness to an entire spectrum of creative endeavor.
In fact, he’s a textbook representative of the demographic identified by economist and urban scholar Richard Florida, in his 2002 book The Rise of the Creative Class. Moran’s parents took him to symphonic concerts and museum exhibitions; the arts weren’t an extravagance so much as a fact of everyday life. “My father collected a lot, had a lot of sculptures,” the pianist reminisces. “He also collected furniture. He’d buy a Bauhaus book and turn the page and say, ‘See, that’s the chair you’re sitting in right there.’ That had a big effect on me. For me, an artist should have the understanding not only of his own art, but every other art around him. So it is the understanding of opera, it’s the understanding of the symphony, it’s the understanding of going to see ballet. It’s the understanding of theater, of literature, of painting, sculpture. Everything. Not to confine yourself just within music.”
That ethos of expansiveness governs the Bandwagon’s embrace of nonmusical influences. Moran, a devoted film buff, has long worked in what could be called a cinematic vein. Soundtrack to Human Motion actually plays like the abstract score to an imaginary film. The album’s first track, “Gangsterism on Canvas,” introduced a fragment of melody that would come to serve as Moran’s leitmotif; it appears, in one form or another, on each of the pianist’s albums. On Facing Left he interpreted selections from The Godfather and Yojimbo, with depth and élan. On the new disc he overlays the ballad “Gentle Shifts South” with a recording of his grandparents tracing their family lineage, for a strikingly cinematic effect. And lately the pianist has leapt more literally into the fray, composing original music for independent shorts. His score for Chris Dillon’s All We Know of Heaven took top honors at the First Run Film Festival this spring; Seith Mann’s Five Deep Breaths, also scored by Moran and screened at First Run, won best short film (and later showed at Sundance, TriBeCa and Cannes).
“Artists feed from other arts,” Moran insists. “I just saw a thing on Merce Cunningham. He was collaborating with Robert Rauschenberg and John Cage. That’s fucking crazy! For three people who are so monumental to just happen to be working together. For me, that’s one of the best examples of what art is supposed to be. And you know, that was not uncommon then. Now it actually is uncommon. But I think it’s really coming soon, the next movement of sound in music. We did a concert at the Studio Museum in Harlem in conjunction with this exhibit, ‘The Challenge of the Modern.’ And it was amazing to perform and be surrounded by paintings. It was just good to be in another environment.”
“I want to keep the musicians on their toes, they want to keep me on my toes, and we want to keep the audience on their toes. We don’t want them to know all our moves.”-Jason Moran, May 2003
The Village Vanguard, probably the most iconic jazz haunt on the globe, is simultaneously “another environment” and the same old place it’s always been: triangular, dusk-scented and steeped in jazz lore. On the first night of the Bandwagon’s inaugural Vanguard engagement, history hung palpably in the air-expectant but also relaxed and unforced. Moran, in hat and coat, strode comfortably and casually onstage. (This time he offered a disclaimer about the hat: “I’m not fronting; I’m cold. It’s chilly up here.”) He triggered his sampled intro, and then the group was off, tumbling into “Another One” with a precipitous, choppy propulsion.
Whatever the various forces at play in the Bandwagon, the fact remains that its means and methods are those of jazz. Waits and Mateen form a rhythm section as distinctive in our time as Ron Carter and Tony Williams were in theirs. Moran ducks and lunges like a welterweight, but never strays far from jazz piano orthodoxy-although it should be noted, and has been, that his muses (Byard, Monk, Abrams, Hill) form a rather unconventional nexus of influence. Performing “Out Front,” Moran and company put the Byard tune through its paces, starting in a stride realm and then careening through a catalog of tempos, starting and stopping, restlessly shifting gears. It’s a powerful demonstration of swing that never settles; there’s a sense of edgy displacement even during the toe-tapping portions of the tune. “It’s on the high level of telepathy now,” Mateen says laughingly of the interplay. “To the point where we finish each other’s sentences. Then onstage, there are so many moments where we play things harmonically or rhythmically, and I’m like, ‘I thought I was just about to do that by myself, but we all did it together.’ And it was like nothing we had ever done before.”
Moran is enthusiastic about The Bandwagon, which captures the group in full force during its six-day stint at the club, November 26 through December 1, 2002. But, he also notes, “the best night we did, we didn’t record. Thursday night was just amazing! We were like: ‘Wow, we really made some statements tonight.'”
From the kitchen comes an unexpected commentary: “It’s so nice to hear you say that.” Alicia Hall peeks around the corner, pancake mix in hand. “Because Thursday night was Thanksgiving.”
Moran grins. “And we got engaged on that Thursday.”
Hall disappears around the corner again. “In history I want to be responsible for his favorite night of music,” she calls from the other room. “Is that on tape?”
It’s a lighthearted moment, and a reminder: For all the progressive ambitions and conceptual rigor, Moran is mostly concerned with personal expression. “When I started performing a lot,” he muses, “I had this notion that anytime you play music, it should be music that you really love. ‘Planet Rock’ is a song I’ve loved over 20 years. It’s not something new. These people that I taped, they’re people that I actually know. One piece is my grandparents talking; that’s my family history when I play that piece. That’s not just some people saying people’s names. Those are my ancestors. So the music is very much a part of my bones.”
Which isn’t to say that Moran waits for inspiration to reveal itself. “I have a grant proposal I’m going to write for the group,” he says, “for a project called ‘Storefront.’ It’s where the band leases a storefront somewhere for a month. And we are the working band in this storefront from 9 to 5 p.m.-like a job. So we go hang out there, and whether we play music or watch TV, there will be seats set up so people can come in. And maybe a couple of nights out of the week there will be free concerts. And artists will be welcome to come in and interact.”
Part installation, part community outreach and part performance art, the idea jibes perfectly with Moran’s creative conception. Yet he speaks about it matter-of-factly, like everything else. “I just think this is a way to bring the art out. It’s always about exposing the art, and creating it at the same time.”
Music | Critic's Notebook
Jason Moran, From the Venice Biennale to the Village Vanguard
November 21, 2016
New York Times
An installation view of Jason Moran’s “Staged: Savoy Ballroom 1” (2015), at Luhring Augustine Bushwick in Brooklyn. Credit Photograph by Farzad Owrang; Jason Moran, via Luhring Augustine, New York
A decade ago, when Jason Moran released “Artist in Residence,” it might have been possible to see that album as an outlier. Made up of selections from several large commissioned works — with a percussive cameo by the performance artist Joan Jonas, and a spoken-word sample of the conceptual artist Adrian Piper — it framed Mr. Moran as not only a pianist and composer but also a fluent traveler in the realm of contemporary art.
A decade ago, when Jason Moran released “Artist in Residence,” it might have been possible to see that album as an outlier. Made up of selections from several large commissioned works — with a percussive cameo by the performance artist Joan Jonas, and a spoken-word sample of the conceptual artist Adrian Piper — it framed Mr. Moran as not only a pianist and composer but also a fluent traveler in the realm of contemporary art.
He was in his early 30s then, already celebrated as a musician working both in and around jazz conventions. His portfolio since has expanded to include collaborations with the visual artists Stan Douglas, Lorna Simpson and Glenn Ligon; the choreographer Ronald K. Brown; and the filmmaker Ava DuVernay. As artistic director for jazz at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Mr. Moran generates a kaleidoscopic range of programming, testing out at the institutional level an aesthetic ideal that has already proven effective and compelling in his own work.
That ideal felt especially relevant this year, which brought us major museum residencies in New York by one of Mr. Moran’s worthiest peers, Vijay Iyer, and one of their mutual heroes, Cecil Taylor. Another prominent pianist, Robert Glasper, dipped a toe into the art world with the abstract painter Mark Bradford. The composer-bandleader Darcy James Argue released an album adapted from a multimedia theatrical production. The 2017 Whitney Biennial, as announced last week, will include a contribution from the saxophonist Kamasi Washington.
Jason Moran’s “Staged: Savoy Ballroom 1,” at the 2015 Venice Biennale. Credit Photograph by Roberto Marossi; Jason Moran, via Luhring Augustine, New York
At jazz’s upper echelons, this sort of thing is now standard practice. That’s a shift, and while Mr. Moran can’t be solely credited for the surge in interdisciplinary work — he’d be the first to call out important precursors, like Mr. Taylor — his success has left an impression on other musicians and (perhaps just as important) among presenting organizations.
He programmed his own series in New York this year, in the Veterans Room at the Park Avenue Armory. (His “Artist Studio” series there continues into 2017.) He kicked things off with a brilliant solo piano recital later released as “The Armory Concert” — the auspicious first release on Yes Records, which he formed after ending a long affiliation with Blue Note.
“The Armory Concert” is a solitary statement, but it reverberates with echoes of collaboration. One song, “Alicia,” is a tribute to Mr. Moran’s wife and creative partner, the mezzo-soprano Alicia Hall Moran. Most other tracks are distilled from larger works like “Reanimation,” made with Ms. Jonas, and “Looks of a Lot,” forged in partnership with the Chicago installation artist Theaster Gates. (Both of those pieces will be restaged at the Kennedy Center in February.)
The album’s most startling track, a hard rumble of glissandi titled “All Hammers and Chains,” comes from “Staged,” which Mr. Moran presented at last year’s Venice Biennale. More than a performance piece, this was a meditation on two bygone Manhattan jazz venues, the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem and the Three Deuces on 52nd Street.
Working from old photographs, with the help of local fabricators, Mr. Moran made a sculptural reconstruction of each space: a golden-hued Savoy band shell, and a closetlike Three Deuces stage. Then he composed music to play in a loop, mainly on a Steinway Spirio player piano.
After its Venice Biennale run, Mr. Moran brought “Staged” to Luhring Augustine Bushwick, the Brooklyn outpost of the gallery that represents him. The installation was on display from spring into midsummer, with a handful of special performances by Mr. Moran and the Bandwagon, his longtime trio with Tarus Mateen on bass and Nasheet Waits on drums.
Jason Moran, on piano, and other members of his Bandwagon trio, Tarus Mateen on bass and Nasheet Waits on drums. Credit Photograph by Roberto Marossi; Jason Moran, via Luhring Augustine, New York
During one of these, the musicians wedged themselves into the Three Deuces space and played an exhilarating 40-minute set, mingling new material with old: a Thelonious Monk tune, a Duke Ellington number, the standard “Body and Soul.” But the historical implications of the artwork were self-evident; the musicians made no attempt to sound like anything other than themselves.
In the front of the gallery, Mr. Moran had stocked a glass vitrine with artifacts for sale: old sheet music, drink menus, hat stands. Luhring Augustine was also selling the first available copies of “Loop,” a limited-edition art zine he had edited, with contributions from musicians like the singer Cassandra Wilson, the saxophonists Steve Coleman and Matana Roberts, and the bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma. Idiosyncratic and full of character, it felt of a piece with the exhibition, while aligning Mr. Moran with a vibrant, multigenerational artistic cohort.
Last week, at the Jazztopad Festival in Poland, Mr. Moran presented the premiere of his latest commission: “Wind,” a chamber suite inspired by freedom movements and cultural resistance. He’d conceived an evocative set design, with the musicians all performing in tents, against a backdrop of drapery.
A live recording was made over the weekend, for possible release. But you can experience a premonition of that new piece on “The Armory Concert,” which opens with “Wind” and closes with “Winds,” both songs ringing with sober harmonies.
In similar fashion, Mr. Moran and the Bandwagon will be at the Village Vanguard this week, consolidating elements of their recent practice. It would be entirely accurate to describe them as artists in residence — and just as true to call them musicians at work.
Jason Moran and the Bandwagon appear Tuesday through Sunday at the Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Avenue South, Manhattan; 212-255-4037, villagevanguard.com.
A version of this article appears in print on November 22, 2016, on Page C4 of the New York edition with the headline: A Jazz Maestro Forging Partnerships Across the Arts. Order Reprints| Today's Paper
Related Coverage:
MacArthur Fellows Program
Jason Moran
Jazz Pianist and Composer
New York, New York
Age: 35 at time of award
September 28, 2010
Jason Moran is a pianist, composer, and bandleader who mines a variety of musical styles to create adventurous, genre-crossing jazz performances. Moran’s signature corpus marries established classical, blues, and jazz techniques with the musical influences of his generation, including funk, hip-hop, and rock. On his solo piano album, Modernistic (2002), he explores the evolution of twentieth-century rhythmic techniques through his virtuosic execution of two-handed “stride” piano—a style used extensively by jazz artists in the 1920s—while Same Mother (2005) is a re-examination of the emotional and stylistic elements of the blues tradition. In original compositions for his ensemble, The Bandwagon, Moran uses the human voice as a starting point for melodic structure, translating speech patterns into a musical language through which the listener can reflect on the underlying connections between speech and music. More recently, Moran has collaborated with visual and performing artists and incorporated new technology in imaginative multimedia performances. His 2008 homage to Thelonious Monk, In My Mind: Monk at Town Hall, 1959, weaves together crafted and found audio and visual archival material and a reharmonization of the original big band arrangements, illustrating both Monk’s contribution to the history of jazz as well as the enduring power of the musical form. Through reinterpretation of jazz standards and new compositions of his own, Moran is expanding the boundaries of jazz expression and playing a dynamic role in its evolution in the twenty-first century.
Jason Moran received a B.M. (1997) from the Manhattan School of Music. His additional recordings as a leader include Soundtrack to Human Motion (1999), The Bandwagon: Live at the Village Vanguard (2003), Artist in Residence (2006), and TEN (2010), among others. He joined the faculty of the New England Conservatory in 2010.
Recent News
In 2014, Jason Moran was named artistic director for jazz at the Kennedy Center. He was a 2015 Grammy nominee for Best Jazz Instrumental Album for ALL RISE: A Joyful Elegy for Fats Waller, and he composed his first feature film score for Selma (2014), directed by Ava DuVernay.
Updated July 2015
http://www.acreativedc.com/blog/2016/3/30/interview-jason-moran
INTERVIEW: JASON MORAN
interview conducted by A Creative DC's Savannah Harris
Jason Moran’s ability to highlight continuity between seemingly opposing forces is what makes him a leading force in the music community, and as the Kennedy Center’s Artistic Director for Jazz, Moran has familiarized the KenCen audience with everything from skate ramps to Go-Go.
For him, it’s all connected. The same year he scored Ava DuVernay’s film “Selma” he also created a modern and highly groove-oriented nod to Fats Waller’s music in “All Rise: A Joyful Elegy for Fats Waller.” Soon after, he was back at the Kennedy Center leading the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead program, a two-week residency for a small set of young musicians developing their sound through improvisation and composition.
After an early March installment of his collaborative series “Jason+,” where he linked up with composer Mason Bates and D.C.-based Bohemian Caverns All Stars, we caught up with Moran to learn more about his approach to multi-disciplinary work, and unlimited improvisation. Catch the next Jason+ (ft. NEA Jazz Master Charles Lloyd) on April 29, and the last in the series (a collab with NSO Pops) takes place mid-June.
You have chosen to collaborate with a range of artists at the top of their discipline, from choreographer Ronald K. Brown to Charles Lloyd. And in your own work, you’ve covered the bases from Fats Waller to Jaki Byard and beyond. How do all of these elements fit together?
Well, I think every individual has many facets. I grew up in a household that put a lot of value in all of the arts. So, within jazz, the intersections are many. I see them in style, in dance, in sound, in improvisation, in skateboarding, etc. I can’t help but see and hear it everywhere. When I embark on a collaboration with someone, it’s to realize a certain possibility, from a chord to a skateboard ramp. And within me, they all make sense. I think it’s the duty of the artist to investigate themselves before addressing anything else.
Does your improvisational process change depending on the playing situation? Are you thinking differently when you’re playing with The Bandwagon vs. other collaborators/ musicians?
Yes, my approach can change drastically depending on who is on the gig. When I play with Tarus and Nasheet, we really do understand how each other fly. Like 3 kites circling one another from 40 feet high. When I play with other folks, I try to have empathy the way they do. And I want to support people’s goals and sounds.
You have been leading the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead program for several years now. What elements of the program are most inspiring to you? What directions do you see the younger generation of musicians going in?
What inspires me the most about BCJA is the development of a large community. After our two weeks together, we really do understand a lot about one another. I love having the listening sessions, and I also love the free concerts we put on.
You have been leading the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead program for several years now. What elements of the program are most inspiring to you? What directions do you see the younger generation of musicians going in?
What inspires me the most about BCJA is the development of a large community. After our two weeks together, we really do understand a lot about one another. I love having the listening sessions, and I also love the free concerts we put on.
How do you view your role in the changing aesthetic of jazz today?
I think it remains to be
ning sessions, and I also love the free concerts we put on.
How do you view your role in the changing aesthetic of jazz today?
I think it remains to be seen. I hear tendencies in my generation that I think have touched those of a younger generation. And in that way, it’s cool to watch and listen to the music shifting. My role, mostly, is to be an enabler.
You are often working on several project simultaneously, which could potentially be stressful. What grounds you? Do you have a practice that keeps you level?
For me, grounding comes from family. It is also very stressful, but it is only stressful because I love what I do. And because I care, I realize that I must put time in on the projects for me to keep moving ahead as a player and thinker. It is normal for me, and I enjoy the negotiation of time to manage the demands.
Where are some of your favorite places just to hang and listen to music?
Village Vanguard is my favorite. I also love juke joints in the South that have live bands ‘till 4 in the morning, and serve catfish and fried chicken. I love listening to music where the music’s function is well known.
Lastly, can you give a lasting piece of advice to young creatives who want to venture into multidisciplinary work?
Say “yes” to everything, so that when it’s time to say “no,” you understand why.
Jason Moran at Kennedy-Center.org
photos courtesy Kennedy Center:
1+2: Clay Patrick McBride
3: Jati LIndsay
Jason Moran and The Bandwagon release THANKSGIVING AT THE VANGUARD recorded live at The Village Vanguard. Bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits join Moran to celebrate their annual Thanksgiving week residency. Rolling Stones calls the recording "this is the people's avant garde." Jason Moran’s solo piano release, THE ARMORY CONCERT
is available now. This is Moran’s first release on his own label YES RECORDS. Recorded at The Park Avenue Armory in the newly restored Veterans Room. Moran is also the curator of the Artist Studio series at The Park Avenue Armory. Ava DuVernay's documentary THE 13th is scored by Jason Moran and on view NETFLIX. Slavery, Jim Crow, Criminalization links a chain of racial inequality, forged by political and economic motives. This marks DuVernay and Moran's second collaboration as their followup to SELMA.
Moran is a recipient of the 2010 MacArthur Fellowship.
Jason Moran interviews artist Glenn Ligon in the summer issue of INTERVIEW magazine. See their collaboration DEATH OF TOM at the Museum of Modern Art.
SLANG - Finale
4 years ago4 years
Commissioned by OTHER MINDS.
This is the final movement.
Featuring: Alicia Hall Moran, Mary Halvorson, Jason Moran, Tarus Mateen, Nasheet Waits, and the voices of Jonas and Malcolm Moran.
This work is based on some jazz slang and terminology.
Tag Solo Loop Session Cat Snap Pocket
Trade Head Break Yeah Top Hip
Out Straight Vonce Bomb Jazz Cookin
Free Comp Hear-It Shed Axe Call-One Bag
Set-it-up Groid Blues Cool Killing Dark
Gig Changes Swing Vibe Chart Dig
Jam Tag A B Stop-Time Jive Bad
Crib Blow Cake Dough Ridiculous Lay-out Trainwreck
Count-it-Off Cookin 1 2 3 4
Home
- Jazz Studies
- Contact Jason Moran
Pianist and composer Jason Moran joined the New England Conservatory faculty as of Fall 2010, following a series of residencies at NEC.
In September 2010, Moran was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and was cited by the Foundation for his "adventurous, genre-crossing jazz performances."
Moran became the Kennedy Center's Artistic Advisor for Jazz in 2011.
Named "Up-n-Coming Jazz Musician" of 2003 by the Jazz Journalists Association, and called "the most provocative thinker in current jazz" by Rolling Stone, Moran first came to prominence as a member of saxophonist Greg Osby's touring and recording band in 1997. In 1999, Osby's label, Blue Note, signed Moran to a recording contract in his own right. He has since released eight CDs as a solo pianist or bandleader, to great acclaim. His current band, the Bandwagon, is a trio with bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits.
After getting his early inspiration from Thelonious Monk, and his academic start at Houston's High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Moran became one of Jaki Byard's last students in New York.
In addition to critical and audience recognition of his music, Moran has received commissions from the San Francisco Jazz Festival and Chamber Music America, to which he responded by using sampled conversations as vocal triggers. Moran's willingness to mix media is currently being fulfilled by collaborations with such noted visual and performing artists as Glenn Ligon, Kara Walker, and Joan Jonas.
Moran has performed as a sideman with such artists as Cassandra Wilson, Joe Lovano, Don Byron, Steve Coleman, Lee Konitz, Von Freeman, Ravi Coltrane, and Stefon Harris.
Moran’s 1999 debut recording as a leader, Soundtrack to Human Motion, earned critical praise from The New York Times's Ben Ratliff, who named it best album of the year. His 2001 album, Black Stars, prompted Gary Giddins of The Village Voice to exclaim "Black Stars is possibly a Blue Note benchmark, definitely one of the year’s outstanding discs."
Studies at Manhattan School of Music. Piano with Jaki Byard, Muhal Richard Abrams, and Andrew Hill. Former lecturer/instructor at Banff Center for The Arts, Vallekilde Jazz Camp, Denmark, Skidmore College, Manhattan School of Music, The New School, and the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Texas. Recordings on Blue Note.
Photo by Andrew Hurlbut
THE MUSIC OF JASON MORAN: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH JASON MORAN:
Jason Moran Plays Thelonious Monk:
Jason Moran and Bandwagon at the Guggenheim Museum:
Jason Moran and Vijay Iyer masterclass at NEC
September 30, 2014 - Two exceptional jazz pianists—both of them MacArthur Fellows—together. With Vijay Iyer now at Harvard University as Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts, and Jason Moran teaching New England Conservatory, it was only a matter of time before the two came together. This video documents their conversation as well as the work they did with NEC students.
ABOUT NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY
A cultural icon that will mark its 150th anniversary in 2017, New England Conservatory (NEC) is recognized worldwide as a leader among music schools. Located in Boston, Massachusetts, NEC offers rigorous training in an intimate, nurturing community to undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate music students from around the world. Its faculty of 225 boasts internationally esteemed artist-teachers and scholars. NEC alumni go on to fill orchestra chairs, concert hall stages, jazz clubs, recording studios, and arts management positions worldwide. Half of the Boston Symphony Orchestra is composed of NEC-trained musicians and faculty.
The only conservatory in the United States designated a National Historic Landmark, NEC presents more than 1000 free concerts each year. Many of these take place in Jordan Hall (which shares National Historic Landmark status with the school), world-renowned for its superb acoustics and beautifully restored interior.
Jason Moran plays "Fire Waltz"
(Composition by Mal Waldron):
Jason Moran and Bandwagon play "Crepuscule with Nellie":
Jason Moran: Jazz, Minimalism and Abstraction:
Jason Moran on Charles Mingus and Jaki Byard:
2012 Biennial: Alicia Hall Moran and Jason Moran: BLEED
Jason Moran: "Body and Soul"--Live at the Tribes (NYC):
Outside the Box: Jason Moran, Jazz, and Skateboarding:
Conversation: Jazz Musician Jason Moran:
ART NOIR: A Conversation Between Jason Moran and Joan Jonas
MFA Fine Arts and ARTNOIR present an intimate conversation with world-renowned artist and pioneer in video and performance Joan Jonas and jazz pianist, musician and composer Jason Moran. This tête-à-tête will examine the potency of the collaborative process. The symbiotic journey of these two artists, whose 10-year working relationship has generated a series of acclaimed collaborations, provides a critical discourse that exemplifies the power of creative intersectionality.
Joan Jonas (b. 1936, New York) is an artist whose work encompasses a wide range of media including video, performance, installation, sound, text and sculpture. Jonas' experiments and productions in the late 1960s and early '70s continue to be crucial to the development of many contemporary art genres, from performance and video to conceptual art and theatre. Since 1968, her practice has explored ways of seeing, the rhythms of rituals, and the authority of objects and gestures. Jonas has exhibited, screened and performed her work at museums, galleries and large-scale group exhibitions throughout the world, such as the Taipei Biennal; Documentas 5, 6, 7, 8, 11 and 13; the 2008 Sydney Biennial; the 2008 Yokohama Triennial; and the 28th Sao Paolo Biennial. She has recently presented solo exhibitions at Jeu de Paume, Paris; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; CCA Kitakyushu, Japan; Contemporary Art Museum, Houston; HangarBicocca, Milan; NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore; and the U.S. Pavilion for the 56th Venice Biennial.
Jazz pianist, composer and performance artist Jason Moran was born in Houston in 1975 and earned a degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Jaki Byard. He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2010 and is the artistic director for jazz at The Kennedy Center. Moran currently teaches at the New England Conservatory.
Moran's rich and varied body of work is actively shaping the current and future landscape of jazz. He is deeply invested in reassessing and complicating the relationship between music and language, and his extensive efforts in composition, improvisation and performance are all geared toward challenging the status quo while respecting the accomplishments of his predecessors. His activity stretches beyond the many recordings and performances with masters of the form, including Charles Lloyd, Bill Frisell and the late Sam Rivers, and his work with his trio The Bandwagon (with drummer Nasheet Waits and bassist Tarus Mateen) has resulted in a profound discography for Blue Note Records. The scope of Moran’s partnerships and music-making with venerated and iconic visual artists is extensive. He has collaborated with such major figures as Adrian Piper, Joan Jonas, Glenn Ligon, Stan Douglas, Adam Pendleton, Lorna Simpson (BFA 1982 Photography) and Kara Walker; commissioning institutions of Moran's work include the Walker Art Center, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Dia Art Foundation, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Harlem Stage and Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Jason Moran and Carrie Mae Weems in Conversation:
Published on Dec 9, 2016:
Jason Moran and Carrie Mae Weems discuss music, creative practice, and collaboration.
MacArthur Foundation: Jason Moran, George E. Lewis - Millenium Stage (October 2, 2016)
Jason Moran STAGED (La Biennale di Venezia 2016):
Charles Lloyd & Jason Moran duo (full concert ) -Live @ Jazz sous les pommiers 2016:
Jason Moran (musician)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jason Moran
| |
 | |
Background information
| |
Born
| |
Genres
| |
Occupation(s)
|
Musician, composer
|
Instruments
|
Piano
|
Website
| |
Jason Moran (born January 21, 1975) is an American jazz pianist, composer and educator, heavily involved in multimedia art and theatrical installations.[1]
Moran recorded first with Greg Osby and debuted as a band leader with the 1999 album Soundtrack to Human Motion. Since then, he has released eight other albums—with his trio The Bandwagon, solo or leading other ensembles—and appeared in about 30 albums as a sideman. He has garnered much critical acclaim and won a number of awards for his playing and compositional skills, which combine elements of post-bop and avant-garde jazz, blues, classical music,[2][3] stride piano,[1][4] and hip hop, among others.
Contents
Career
Early years
Moran was born in Houston, Texas, and grew up in the Pleasantville neighborhood of Houston. His high middle-class parents, Andy, an investment banker, and Mary,[5] a teacher, encouraged his musical and artistic sensibilities at the Houston Symphony, museums and galleries, and through a relationship with John T. Biggers and a collection of their own.[1][6] Moran began training at classical piano playing, in Yelena Kurinets' Suzuki method music school,[5] when he was six. However, his father's extensive record collection (around 10,000 in 2004), varied from Motown to classical to avant-garde jazz.[5]
As a boy he developed a preference for hip hop music[7][8] over the piano until, at the age of 13, he first heard the song "′Round Midnight" by Thelonious Monk at home,[9] and switched his efforts to jazz. Monk's childlike melodies, with their many silent spaces, struck him as relatively easy to play and not overly ornate, while the rhythms were reminiscent of hip hop songs, and the harmonies unorthodox.[10] Both jazz and hip hop were part of Houston's skateboarding scene in which he was involved.[11][12]
He attended Houston's High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA), graduating in 1993[13] from the jazz program headed by Robert Morgan. In his senior year, he was student director of the school's jazz combo[5] and part of the Texas high school all-state jazz ensemble.[14][15]
Late 1990s
He then enrolled at the Manhattan School of Music, from which he would graduate in 1997 with a BM degree, to study with pianist Jaki Byard.[1][6] The next year he participated in Betty Carter's Jazz Ahead exclusive workshop, composing the piece "Make a Decision"[16] for the final concert.
In 1997, when Moran was a senior at Manhattan School of Music, he was invited to join the band of saxophonist Greg Osby for a European tour, following a conversation that lingered mostly on older piano jazz, and no audition.[1] Osby liked his playing, and Moran continued to play with Osby's group upon their return to the United States, making his first recorded appearance on Osby's 1997 Blue Note album Further Ado. He would subsequently appear on several other Osby albums, and Osby would introduce him to avant-garde pianists Muhal Richard Abrams and Andrew Hill.[17]
His stint with Osby led Moran to sign a contract of his own with Blue Note. His debut Soundtrack to Human Motion was released in 1999. Moran was joined on the album by Osby, drummer Eric Harland (a classmate of Moran's at the Manhattan School, and the one who recommended him to Osby), vibraphonist Stefon Harris and acoustic bassist Lonnie Plaxico.
2000s
Moran's next album, 2000's Facing Left (after a work by Egon Schiele[18]), featured a trio that formed out of Osby's group, New Directions:[1] Moran, bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits. Compositions were some of Moran's and some by Mateen, Duke Ellington, Björk and Byard. The trio, which came to be known as The Bandwagon, was joined by saxophonist and pianist Sam Rivers for their next album, Black Stars, which appeared in 2001.[19] Black Stars was included in NPR's "The 50 Most Important Recordings of the Decade."[20]
In 2002, Moran released a solo album, Modernistic, and followed it in 2003 with a live trio album, recorded at New York's Village Vanguard, called The Bandwagon.[21]
That same summer he appeared in the Montreal International Jazz Festival, first partnering with Lee Konitz,[22][23] and then with the trio.[24] In 2004 he played on Don Byron's Ivey-Divey. The Ivey-Divey Trio (sometimes a quartet[25]) toured for a number of years, from the Monterey Jazz Festival 2004 to Montreal's Jazz Festival in 2006[26] to WinterJazzFest in 2009.[27]
Moran's 2005 album Same Mother, an exploration of the blues, brought guitarist Marvin Sewell into the Bandwagon mix.
Moran's 2006 release, Artist in Residence, included a number of selections from different works commissioned by museums, all of which premiered in 2005: "Milestone" is centered on a visual work by Adrian Piper from the Walker Art Center;[7] "The Shape, the Scent, the Feel of Things" was incorporated into a preexisting installation of that name by artist Joan Jonas;[28] and "RAIN", inspired by ring shouts from African American slaves,[19] is a recording of The Bandwagon with guests Marvin Sewell, Ralph Alessi and Abdou Mboup. Critical reception to Artist in Residence has been arguably colder that to his other releases.[29]
Moran's IN MY MIND, premiered in 2007,[30] is a multimedia presentation inspired by Thelonious Monk's 1959 "large band" concert at The Town Hall in New York City. It utilises filmed and taped material of Monk's rehearsal, found in the archive of W. Eugene Smith, and video art by David Dempewolf.[31] A text-laden painting from Glenn Ligon extracted the words "In My Mind" - which Monk says on one of Smith's tapes - as did Moran, incorporating the soundbite into the set. The program is played by The Big Bandwagon:[32] the trio with a largely changeable five piece horn section. The New York Times wrote, "It had a magical balance of theory and intuition, and the crowd stayed fully with it."[33] The February 2009 installation is the subject of a documentary film of the same name.[34]
In April 2007 Moran took the piano in Charles Lloyd's New Quartet, succeeding Geri Allen.[35][36] He was the last member to join the group,[37] which keeps touring (as of 2014), having recorded one studio album and two live ones. Moran and Lloyd recorded a duo album, Hagar's Song, in 2013.
"Live: Time" is a 2008 complement to the Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibition on The Quilts of Gee's Bend.[40][41] Cane was written for classical wind quintet Imani Winds - among them Moran's college classmate Toyin Spellman.[3] It premiered in October 2008, and appeared[42] in their album Terra Incognita in 2010; it relates to Marie Thérèse Metoyer and Moran's family history in Natchitoches, Louisiana.[43][44] "Refraction" is a ballet Moran scored and accompanied for Alonzo King LINES Ballet in 2009.[45] Four independent short films and a feature documentary appeared in the 2000s with soundtracks by Moran (see below). In addition, he collaborated with Ligon on 2008's The Death of Tom:[46] an abstract, conceptual, video artwork. Reflecting their shared historical interests, Moran contributed a score based on the song "Nobody" by Bert Williams.[47] The work is in the MoMA collection,[48] but he played to it again in a screening in 2011.[49]
2010s
The album Ten,[50][51][52] released in 2010, marked a ten-year interval from the Bandwagon's debut, Facing Left. It features "Blue Blocks" off the Philadelphia Museum commission, "RFK in the Land of Apartheid," from an original score to a documentary film of the same name,[53] and "Feedback Pt. 2", an homage to Jimi Hendrix's performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.[54] Monk's "Crepuscule with Nellie" was recorded at the IN MY MIND tour.[55] Ten also contains a composition by Moran and Andrew Hill, and others by Leonard Bernstein, Jaki Byard, Conlon Nancarrow and Bert Williams.[56] The Downbeat 2010 critics' poll voted Ten "Jazz Album of the Year", while also voting Moran "Pianist of the Year" and "Jazz Artist of the Year."[57] The New York Times chose Ten among 2010 top 10 pop and jazz albums.[58]
Since 2011 Moran has been performing the show "Fats Waller dance party", originally commissioned by Harlem Stage. It became the basis of a 2014 release, All Rise: A Joyful Elegy for Fats Waller, dedicated to Fats Waller and the form of popular entertainment that jazz was in his days.[59] Participants in the fluid roster have included singers Meshell Ndegeocello, in a co-leader position, and Lisa E. Harris, drummer Charles Haynes' ensemble with trumpeter Leron Thomas and trombonist Josh Roseman, saxophonist Steve Lehman and bassist Mark Kelly.
Moran's composition, "Slang", was commissioned for the 2011 Other Minds Festival in San Francisco.[60] In the May 2012 Whitney Biennial, Alicia Hall Moran and Jason curated BLEED, a week-long event that involved many artists and artisans, and aimed to expose artistic processes to the point "it has to be scary".[1][61] Later that year a new performance with Joan Jonas, Reanimation was first staged in dOCUMENTA (13).[62][63][64] In the summer of 2013 and the next, Moran accompanied, with The Bandwagon and guest Jeff Parker, skateboarding shows in SFJAZZ Center.[11][65]
In April 2014 Moran and Imani Winds premiered Jump Cut Rose, which he wrote for the quintet and a piano,[3][66] In May, Looks of A Lot, a theatrical co-production with Theaster Gates on the theme of Chicago artistic history[47] premiered in the city's Symphony Center; participants included The Bandwagon, the Kenwood Academy Jazz Band,[67] Ken Vandermark and Katie Ernst, bassist and vocalist.[68] The same month, the Bandwagon played their composition, "The Subtle One", to a ballet adaptation by Ronald K. Brown.[69][70] In September he appeared trice in the Monterey Jazz Festival: Leading a Fats Waller Dance Party, in a one-piano duo with Robert Glasper,[71] and with Charles Lloyd New Quartet.[72] He was responsible for the music of the multi-nominated 2016 documentary 13th.
Besides recordings under his own name, Moran has recorded with a range of other musicians including Greg Osby, Steve Coleman, Charles Lloyd, Cassandra Wilson, Joe Lovano, Christian McBride, Von Freeman,[73] Francisco Mela, and Don Byron. He also performed with Ravi Coltrane,[citation needed] Marian McPartland,[74][75][76] Lee Konitz,[24] Wayne Shorter (as substitute),[77] Robert Glasper,[78][79] violinist Jenny Scheinman,[80] The Bad Plus,[81] guitarist Mary Halvorson and trumpeter Ron Miles,[82] drummer Herlin Riley,[83] Dave Holland (Overtone Quartet), and Bill Frisell.[40][84]
Teaching and organization
Moran has been on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music since 2010, where he coaches two ensembles, teaches lessons, and gives masterclasses. At the Kennedy Center he has been the musical adviser for jazz since 2011, and artistic director for jazz since 2014, occupying the position of Billy Taylor.[85] Focused on attracting larger and younger audience, he created at Kenndy the Crossroads Club.[citation needed]
Apart from these positions, Moran has organized events such as "713-->212: Houstonians in NYC" in January 2011[86][87][88] and Very Very Threadgill, a two-day festival dedicated to Henry Threadgill,[89] his "favorite composer",[90] in September 2014.
Moran and his family manage the granting of "Moran Scholarship Award", first set in 1994 for jazz students at HSPVA. In 2005 they set in Houston The Mary Lou Chester Moran Foundation, for similar purposes.[91][92]
In 2013 he expressed support for the Justice for Jazz Artists campaign of the American Federation of Musicians.[93]
Recognition
Closing 2010, Francis Davis wrote in Village Voice: "... Moran's only competition in the Fifth Annual Village Voice Jazz Critics' Poll was Jason Moran. Ten, his first trio album in seven years, won Album of the Year in a landslide, but that’s not all. The pianist figured prominently on the runner-up, Rudresh Mahanthappa and Bunky Green’s Apex, and Charles Lloyd’s Mirror, which finished fourth ... Add Paul Motian’s Lost in a Dream ... that gives the 2010 MacArthur Fellow four appearances in the Top 10"[94]
JazzTimes' 2011 Expanded Critics' Poll voted Moran second place "Artist of the Year", and first place "Pianist of the Year"; the Charles Lloyd New Quartet, "Acoustic Group of the Year" and The Bandwagon fifth place in that category.[95] In 2013, the New Quartet was second place in its category and Moran, second in pianists.[96]
Moran has won a number of awards, including The Jazz Journalists Association's "Up-n-Coming Jazz Musician" award in 2003. The Down Beat critics poll voted him Rising Star Jazz Artist, Rising Star Pianist, and Rising Star Composer for three years straight (2003–05). In 2005, Moran was also named Playboy magazine's first "Jazz Artist of the Year". In 2007, Moran was named a USA Prudential Fellow by United States Artists.[97] In 2010, he was named a MacArthur Fellow.[98][99]
Another full-length documentary, Grammar about "jazz through Jason Moran" and genre boundaries, is in the making, after first director Radiclani Clytus had found funding in a 2012 kickstarter campaign.[101]
Family
Moran married Alicia Hall, a mezzo-soprano and artistic collaborator,[1] in 2003.[61] They live in Harlem[102] and have twins. He has an older brother and a younger.[5][41] Two of his cousins, Tony and Michael Llorens, toured with Albert King playing piano and drums,[103] and were recorded on In Session.[104] His uncle Joe is a painter.
Discography
As leader
- Soundtrack to Human Motion (1999)
- Facing Left (2000)
- Black Stars (2001)
- Modernistic (2002)
- Same Mother (2005)
- Artist in Residence (2006)
- Ten (2010) JazzTimes: Critics Poll best release
- All Rise: A Joyful Elegy for Fats Waller (2014)
- The Armory Concert (2016)
- Thanksgiving at The Vanguard (2017)
- BANGS (2017)
Film soundtrack
- Two Three Time (2002)
best original score, First Run Film Festival
- Five Deep Breaths (2003)
- All We Know of Heaven (2004)
best original score, First Run Film Festival
- Stutter (2007)
- RFK in the Land of Apartheid (2009)
- Selma (2014)
As sideman
References
- Brett Campbell (2014-06-04). "Imani Winds and Jason Moran: Minimally Inspired, Major Imprint". San Francisco Classical Voice. Retrieved October 22, 2014.
- Sara Fishko (2008-10-15). "Moran On Monk: Finding Rhythm And Space". NPR / WNYC. Retrieved December 3, 2014.
- Scheinin, Richard (2013-05-02). "Jason Moran's new trick: skateboarding at SFJazz". San Jose Mercury News.
- "Jason Moran presents Bandwagon & live skateboarding". SFJAZZ. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- "Distinguished HISD Alumni". Houston Independent School District. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- Jarenwattananon, Patrick (2010-10-21). "What Were They Like in High School? Today's Jazz Stars As Teens". A Blog Supreme. NPR. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- "All-state history roster of 1993". Texas Music Educators Association. Archived from the original on 14 November 2015. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- Becca Pulliam (December 16, 2011). "Jason Moran, Curator [stream]". A Blog Supreme. NPR. Retrieved November 27, 2014.
- Paul Pennington (2013-08-09). "Jason Moran: The Modern Maestro". iRock Jazz. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- "Bio". jasonmoran.com.
- Blumenfeld, Larry (2005-05-19). "Jason Moran: Jazz with a Southern Accent". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- Jarenwattananon, Patrick (November 13, 2009). "Jazz and the 50 Most Important Albums of 2000-2009". NPR. Retrieved November 26, 2014.
- Patrick Jarenwattananon. "Jason Moran and the Bandwagon: Live at the Village Vanguard". NPR. Retrieved 2010-09-30.
- Virginia Schaefer (2003-10-06). "Lee Konitz Concerts at the Montreal Jazz Festival". Allaboutjazz.com. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- "Performances [archives]". Don Byron.
- Barnes, Lucinda. "Joan Jonas: The Shape, the Scent, the Feel of Things". University of California, Berkeley Art Museum. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- See for example Himes, Geoffrey (2007-02-23). "JASON MORAN "Artist in Residence" Blue Note". The Washington Post. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- Virginia A. Schaefer. "Jason Moran, "In My Mind: Monk at Town Hall 1959"". JazzTimes. Retrieved 2014-10-14.
- Geoffrey Himes (October 2010). "Jason Moran: In All Languages". JazzTimes. Retrieved November 26, 2014.
- Martin Johnson (2009-02-22). "Jason Moran Reimagines Thelonious Monk's 1959 Town Hall Concert". New York Magazine. Retrieved December 3, 2014.
- Ben Ratliff (March 1, 2009). "Music Review - 'In My Mind - Monk at Town Hall, 1959' - Fifty Years Later, Two Different Takes on Thelonious Monk's Historic Town Hall Appearance". The New York Times. Retrieved November 23, 2014.
- Ryel-Lindsey, Arthur (2010-04-11). "Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2010: In My Mind (Gary Hawkins)". Slant Magazine. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- "2014 Showcase Artist : Charles Lloyd". Monterey Jazz Festival. Retrieved 1 December 2014.
- John Kelman (February 26, 2007). "Portland Jazz Festival Day 3: February 18, 2007". Allaboutjazz.com. Retrieved November 25, 2014.
- Past Appearances [Reuben Rogers] (PDF), December 2010, retrieved 2014-11-25
- Nate Chinen (2009-09-10). "An Experienced Leader Brings Out a Collectivist Spirit". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- Scheinin, Richard (2012-02-25). "Review: Bassist Dave Holland's Overtone Quartet: Four personalities, one fixed point". San Jose Mercury News. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- "Art After 5 Premieres a New Composition by Jazz Pianist Jason Moran Inspired by the Quilts of Gee's Bend". Philadelphia Museum of Art. 2008-12-01. Retrieved 2014-10-14.
- Joao Marcos Coelho. "Imani Winds / Excellence marks the concert of American quintet in festival.". O Estado de S. Paulo. Retrieved October 21, 2014 – via ImaniWinds.com (translated).
- Mike Telin. "Imani Winds: Tuesday Musical Series...". Cleveland Classical. Retrieved October 21, 2014 – via ImaniWinds.com.
- "Refraction". Alonzo King LINES Ballet.
- Jason Rabin (2011-03-22). "Jason Moran Plays With Abstract Expressionism". JazzTimes. Retrieved December 4, 2014.
- "MoMA - The Collection. The Death of Tom, 2008". MoMA. Retrieved December 4, 2014.
- "On The Death of Tom, with Glenn Ligon, Jason Moran, and Terrance McKnight [audio stream: music and discussion]". Whitney Museum of American Art. March 23, 2011. Retrieved December 4, 2014.
- John Fordham (2010-08-19). "Jason Moran: Ten | CD review | Music". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2010-09-30.
- "Album review: Jason Moran's 'Ten' | Pop & Hiss | Los Angeles Times". Latimesblogs.latimes.com. 2010-06-21. Retrieved 2010-09-30.
- Nate Chinen (2010-12-19). "Top 2010 Pop and Jazz – Jason Moran, Kanye West / Renewal, the Sensual and Fraught Candor". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- Beuttler, Bill (2014-04-07). "Concert Review: Jason Moran's Fats Waller Dance Party". JazzTimes. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- "Other Minds Festival: OM 16: Panel Discussion & Concert 3". Other Minds/radiOM. 2011. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- Ben Ratliff (2012-05-14). "Art, Ancestry, Africa: Letting It All Bleed". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- ""Reanimation" Jason Moran with Joan Jonas". Luhring Augustine. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- Gillian Young (2013-11-22). "Glacial Pace: Joan Jonas’s "Reanimation"". Art in America. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- Scheinin, Richard (2013-05-05). "Review: Jason Moran's jazz/skateboarding duet". San Jose Mercury News. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- Alex Marianyi. "Jason Moran Live with Theaster Gates - 5/30/2014". nextbop.com. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- Burke, Siobhan (2014-06-04). "A Premiere for Ronald K. Brown's Evidence at the Joyce". The New York Times. Retrieved 2014-11-24.
- "Ronald K. Brown / Evidence Dance Company & Jason Moran & The Bandwagon • 'The Subtle One'". Duke Performances. Retrieved 1 December 2014.
- "57th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival an Outstanding Success". Monterey Jazz Festival. Retrieved November 23, 2014.
- "Jason Moran". Monterey Jazz Festival. 2014.
- Dan McClenaghan (2002-11-16). "Von Freeman: The Improvisor (2002)". Allaboutjazz.com. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- Rochester, 2002: [1]
- Monterey, 2004: "Piano legend McPartland: Cool jazz still hot". CNN. September 15, 2004. Retrieved November 23, 2014. "The Monterey Jazz Festival Collection". "47th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival Lineup Announced". j-notes.com. April 6, 2004.
- Ben Ratliff (2011-12-15). "Pistol Annies, YOB, Deaf Center, Paul Simon / Packing Heat and Singing Sweetly [2011 top ten albums]". The New York Times. Retrieved 2014-12-03.
- Micallef, Ken (2014-01-10). "Glasper, Moran Stride into the Spotlight at Winter Jazzfest Blue Note Tribute". Down Beat. Retrieved 2014-10-14.
- "Jenny Scheinman: Live At The Village Vanguard". NPR / WBGO. October 29, 2008. Retrieved November 3, 2014.
- "Old Hand Tries New Approach to Jazz Festival". The New York Times. 2010-02-24. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- Zora Wrightson, Erica (2010-04-14). "Live review: Bill Frisell, Jason Moran and Kenny Wollesen at Largo". LA Weekly. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- Pressley, Nelson (2014-05-06). "Kennedy Center upgrading Jason Moran to artistic director for jazz with 3-year renewal". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2014-10-14.
- "Robert Morgan and Houston's Jazz Legacy, at 92YTriBeCa". New York Times. 2011-01-17. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- Alex Rodriguez (2011-01-13). "Jason Moran Presents "713 --> 212: Houstonians in NYC"". WBGO. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- A webcast of Moran and Glasper, playing with a double trio ("Houstonians in NYC: audio streams". Joshua Jackson.), was mentioned in a New York Times' albums of the year list by Ben Ratliff: ref.
- Kurt Gottschalk (2014-10-07). "Henry Threadgill: Very Very Threadgill 2014". Allaboutjazz.com. Retrieved October 22, 2014.
- Nate Chinen (2014-09-28). "Henry Threadgill Festival at Harlem Stage". The New York Times. Retrieved October 21, 2014.
- "The Mary Lou Chester Moran Foundation". texascorporates.com. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- "Jason Moran, Restless & Revolutionary". International Musician. American Federation of Musicians. Retrieved 8 November 2014. For the date July 2013 see "Jazz Injustice: A History" by Todd Bryant Weeks: [2]
- Francis Davis (December 29, 2010). "Jason Moran Tops Himself". The Village Voice. Retrieved November 26, 2014.
- "Jason Moran – Fellow Profile". Usafellows.org. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- "Jason Moran – MacArthur Foundation". MacArthur Foundation. 2010-01-25. Retrieved 2010-09-30.
- Jarenwattananon, Patrick (2010-09-28). "Jason Moran Named MacArthur Fellow". A Blog Supreme. NPR. Retrieved 2010-09-30.
- "Jason Moran - AIR, as well as saxophone legend Charles Lloyd, set to perform at Moldejazz 2013". Molde Jazz. Retrieved 2014-11-24.
- "Grammar". Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- Giovanni Russonello (2014-09-15). "Jason Moran, Meshell Ndegeocello find their own way to honor Fats Waller". The Washington Post. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
- "The Year '04 in Review: Top 50 CDs". JazzTimes.
- The editors noted: "Drummer Eric Harland, bassist Reuben Rogers and, perhaps most important, the pianist Jason Moran may technically qualify as sidemen here, but they function as anything but." "2008 Year in Review: Top 50 CDs". Jazztimes. 2009. Retrieved November 26, 2014.
- John Fordham (2013-07-25). "Trio 3 + Jason Moran: Refraction – Breakin' Glass – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
External links
- Artist page at Blue Note Records
- page at Kennedy Center
- Faculty page at New England Conservatory
- Jason Moran at Jazz Discography Project
