IMN : Updates for Jason Moran

Video: Jason Moran + Skateboarding

IMN

May 13th, 2013

From Thrasher Magazine

Check out the video below by Thrasher Magazine from last weeks Jason Moran performance at the SFJAZZ Center featuring a skateboarding mini ramp session.

To view the video click here

Jason Moran & the Bandwagon bridge the generation gap

IMN

May 9th, 2013

From The Los Angeles Times

Jason Moran & the Bandwagon bridge the generation gap
By Chris Barton

It says something about the capacity for invention displayed by pianist Jason Moran that it was almost a disappointment to see him taking the stage Tuesday night joined “only” by his band the Bandwagon at a show presented by the Jazz Bakery. Granted, the New York City-based Moran is already appointment viewing for jazz fans given his mountains of acclaim and how rarely he ventures west (Moran performed solo at the Hammer Museum in 2011 but estimated it had been 10 years since his band last played L.A.).

Yet the pianist nearly upstaged himself with two audacious shows at the new SFJAZZ Center last weekend that found him improvising alongside a ramp full of skateboarders. The unexpected juxtaposition of two creative forms became one of the most buzzed-about shows of the year.

Anyone familiar with the 38-year-old pianist had to know that Moran would still have plenty of high-flying tricks of his own Tuesday. Taking the stage at the Musicians Institute’s cavernous performance space, the group showed why it’s one of the most arresting piano trios today with a show that tapped a number of sources at jazz’s roots and incorporated daring new moves that pushed its sound into the future.

To read the full review click here

Live Review: Jason Moran and Live Skateboarding at SFJAZZ Center

IMN

May 6th, 2013

From City Sound Inertia

Live Review: Jason Moran and Live Skateboarding at SFJAZZ Center
By Gabe Meline

At first, the only sensible reaction was giddy laughter that it was even happening at all. At the SFJAZZ Center last night, Jason Moran’s jazz quartet led a jam session on stage—while in the audience, with the first five rows of seats removed, eight skateboarders held a different kind of jam session on a specially built miniramp. Pretty funny, right?

But a few songs into this amusing pairing, conceived by Moran himself, the serious corollaries between the two art forms of jazz and skateboarding began to make perfect sense. As the band onstage improvised in real time, so did the skateboarders, trying trick after trick. As the band was beholden to rhythm and tempo, so were the skateboarders, slaves to that next transition in the ramp, always approaching. As the musicians played off each other’s ideas, so did the skaters, by positioning their boards on the platform for the more daring of the bunch to use as extensions of the ramp.

The results were nothing short of thrilling.

Moran, wearing a T-shirt from the East Bay hip-hop group Souls of Mischief, compared modern-day skateboarding to the early days of modern jazz at Minton’s Playhouse, “when Diz and Bird and all them were trading ideas and the language was changing so quick.”

To read the full review click here

Jason Moran's new trick: skateboarding at SFJazz

IMN

May 2nd, 2013

From San Jose Mercury News

Jason Moran’s new trick: skateboarding at SFJazz
By Richard Scheinin

A child of the ’80s, Jason Moran grew up skateboarding in Houston, Texas. He did his ollies and his kickflips. And then his parents took him and his brothers on a vacation to San Francisco, where Moran — future pianist and jazz innovator — flipped out over the pro skaters who went flying past him on the Embarcadero.
“I’d call it awe,” he says, remembering his reaction to their Olympian feats. “Just having the opportunity to see the skaters who decided to skate in that city and skate those hills — it kind of made a big impression.”

So much so that Moran, now 38, has arranged for his group, the Bandwagon, to perform this weekend at the SFJazz Center with an unusual group of accompanists — eight of San Francisco’s best skateboarders doing tricks on a ramp installed in front of the stage.

He expects it to be “a two-way interaction, kind of like a joint jam session,” with the musicians and skaters blending as a unit, finding their commonalities. “It’s the pulse, it’s the drive, it’s the freedom,” he says, predicting he will “play with the skaters’ tempos and propulsions in the music. We’ll all be listening to what the sound of the music is with that added element: the sound of the skateboard on the ramp.”

He adds, “What better way to pay tribute to the city? San Francisco is the skating capital.”

To read the full article click here

Jason Moran and the Bandwagon at the Kennedy Center

IMN

February 11th, 2013

from The Washington Post

Music review: Jason Moran and Bandwagon at the Kennedy Center
By Michael J. West

Jason Moran is a specialist in the field of jazz abstraction. The pianist and leader of the trio Bandwagon has a rich knowledge of the music’s history and context — part of the reason, no doubt, that he serves as the Kennedy Center’s artistic adviser for jazz. But Moran rarely reads it straight: He prefers to dissect, fragment, distill and subvert it.

That includes the music of pianist and composer Thomas “Fats” Waller, whose music is under ongoing investigation by Moran, who performs a live “Dance Party” of Waller’s tunes and is planning to record some of them with Bandwagon later this year.

On Saturday night, Moran offered samples of that project — and others — for a packed house at the Kennedy Center’s KC Jazz Club. Pulling from any number of angles, and punctuating the experiments with oddly edited audio clips, Moran nevertheless left one constant in place: a soulful, often danceable core.

To read the full review click here

Jason Moran Live on NPR's JazzSet

IMN

February 1st, 2013

from NPR

Jason Moran’s ‘Live: Time On The Quilts Of Gee’s Bend’ Suite On JazzSet
By Becca Pulliam and Mark Schramm

The Philadelphia Museum of Art recently commissioned Jason Moran to write music in conjunction with its exhibition of quilts made by a remarkable group of African-American women in a small rural community on a bend in the Alabama River.

The quilting tradition there dates back to pre-Civil War days, when slaves began sewing together strips of whatever fabric they could find to make bed covers and keep their families warm. It’s a unique style with bold geometric designs and colors, handed down from one generation to the next, from the hard years of tenant farming after the Civil War to the Civil Rights era. The isolation of the community made the quilt designs unique, and in time the artistic merits of the quilts from Gee’s Bend received international recognition.

In September 2002, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston hosted a special exhibition featuring quilts by Annie Mae Young, Loretta Pettway, Mary Lee Bendolph and others. The quilts proved so popular that they toured museums around the country. The U.S. Postal Service even issued commemorative postage stamps. New York magazine art critic Mark Stevens wrote, “The strikingly beautiful quilts just might deserve a place among the great works of 20th-century abstract art.”

After receiving his commission, Moran, his wife Alicia Hall Moran and family members toured the quilters’ homes and workshops, heard their stories and bought their own quilts. Here at the KC Jazz Club, Moran drapes his over a music stand, and members of The Bandwagon “play the quilt,” improvising on the patterns. Bill Frisell sets aside his guitar to read his letter to Moran about Frisell’s own visit to Gee’s Bend — how he took the ferry but went too far and almost missed the warm welcome.

To read the full article and listen to the full set click here

Jason Moran at NPR Music's "A Jazz Piano Christmas"

IMN

December 17th, 2012

From NPR Music

A Jazz Piano Christmas 2012

December 14, 2012 NPR Music has an annual tradition in December: Invite some of the world’s best jazz keyboard players to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, then set them loose on their favorite holiday tunes. Jason Moran, Taylor Eigsti, Geri Allen and Ellis Marsalis perform live.

To hear the recording, see pictures, and read more click here

Jason Moran: Making Jazz Personal

IMN

November 15th, 2012

From Smithsonian.com

Jason Moran: Making Jazz Personal
By Joann Stevens

Even if Mozart’s generation had worn porkpie hats instead of powdered wigs, pianist Jason Moran doubts he would have opted for a classical music career over jazz.

Though he finds the European classical music that he has studied since age six artistically beautiful, it doesn’t move him emotionally the way jazz does, he says. Jazz, America’s classical music, has a sound he can relate to, a cultural history he can identify with, and role models, who have inspired him since he was a teen growing up in Houston.

“For me Thelonious Monk became the mountain top,” he says.

Now as Artistic Advisor of Jazz at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the MacArthur Genius Award winner is drawing on those memories to make jazz both personal and emotionally engaging for a new generation.

To read more click here

Jason Moran named to EBONY's 2012 Power 100.

IMN

November 2nd, 2012

from EBONY

Congratulations to Alicia Hall Moran and Jason Moran for being named to EBONY magazine’s 2012 Power 100 list. Also commemorated in this years list are Barack Obama, Lebron James and Jay-Z.

With its Dec./Jan. issue—hitting newsstands the week of November 5—EBONY magazine reveals its 2012 Power 100 list of the nation’s most influential African Americans. The annual Power 100 is a broad-range listing of politicians and athletes, entertainers and CEOs, authors and digerati. Top players in the worlds of religion, business, media, the creative arts and more are celebrated based on their impactful ideas and influence. “In this issue, EBONY selects the 100 primary influencers and game changers who have made vital accomplishments during the past year,” say the magazine’s editors.

In celebration, the first annual EBONY Power 100 Gala will be held at New York City’s Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall this Friday, November 2. The invitation-only event will feature special performances by Grammy-winning hip-hop band The Roots, classical violinist Brendon Elliott, the Abyssinian Baptist Church Choir, the Black Monks of Mississippi and selected cast from the Broadway musical Fela!

Read the full list here

DCist Interview: Jason Moran

IMN

October 10th, 2012

From DCist.com

DCist Interview: Jason Moran

The jazz world suffered a huge loss in 2010 with the passing of Dr. Billy Taylor. Taylor was a master pianist, prolific composer, respected educator and pioneering jazz presenter. A District native, Taylor’s local impact was mainly felt through his tenure as Artistic Advisor for Jazz at the Kennedy Center, a position he held from 1994 until his death.

When it came to finding Dr. Taylor’s replacement, the Kennedy Center’s leadership went with a bold choice, tapping pianist/composer Jason Moran to fill the vacancy. Known for his innovative compositions and adventurous improvising, plus a deep respect and understanding for jazz history, Moran has the perfect blend of abilities to shine in this role. At just 37, the MacArthur Fellow can also relate to the younger audiences that large arts institutions so desperately need to attract.

The Kennedy Center’s move drew universal praise, but the proof will be in the pudding come this weekend, which marks the start of Moran’s inaugural jazz season. His programming has lived up to the high expectations, offering patrons a wide variety of performances that range from the traditional to the cutting edge with sprinkles of surprise. Traditionalists will appreciate sets from Jimmy and Tootie Heath, while more energetic crowds can see Medeski Martin & Wood and Soulive in a new standing room space. Moran will also be teaming up with comedian David Alan Grier for what is sure to be a memorable performance, and locals will be proud to see singer Christie Dashiell on the calendar. Moran and his band will also host a jam session on Election Night that is sure to be a highlight.

DCist interviewed Moran to get his thoughts on his new position and the upcoming season.

To read more click here

Fats Waller Dance Party Kicks off Harlem Stage 30th Anniversary

IMN

July 27th, 2012

From: DNAinfo.com

Fats Waller Dance Party Kicks off Harlem Stage 30th Anniversary
By: Jeff Mays

HARLEM — Jazz pianist and composer Jason Moran has one goal in mind when he and singer Meshell N’degeocello kick off the 30th year of Harlem Stage with their “Fats Waller Dance Party” Saturday night: Movement.

“I want to see people out dancing and having a good time,” said Moran. “I wanted to force myself in a situation to work for people.”

The dance party, an original work commissioned by Harlem Stage, celebrates the work of Waller who was known for late-night swinging jams at Small’s Paradise in Harlem where nearly everyone was on their feet.

“Today, in a jazz club, if an audience member starts to move too much they are ostracized and looked at as if they are strange,” said Moran, a Harlem resident.

That wasn’t always the case. It certainly wasn’t true in Waller’s era.

With the dance party, Moran wants everyone on their feet. N’degeocello updated the lyrics and combined them with Moran’s updated music to give present day listeners a taste of what it might have been like during a Saturday night at Small’s Paradise.

“We are so proud to…bring Fats Waller’s music back to the community that helped inspire it so many years ago,” said Harlem Stage Executive Director Pat Cruz.

To read more click here

Jason Moran-The Busiest Man in Jazz

IMN

July 23rd, 2012

From steinway.com

Steinway Artist Feature: Jason Moran. Quite Possibly the Busiest Man in Jazz.

Jason Moran is a busy man. The Manhattan-based jazz pianist and composer—dubbed by Rolling Stone Magazine as “the most provocative thinker in current jazz” and named a MacArthur Fellow in 2010— is also the newly-appointed Artistic Adviser for Jazz for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He’s on a short break from a tour that concludes soon with stops in Finland and Germany. He’s embarking on his ninth album for Blue Note Records, a project focusing on the music of the legendary Fats Waller. And today, a verifiable scorcher in a New York City heat wave, he’s busy escorting his four-year-old twin sons on a donut run to Brooklyn. “We heard there were special donuts here,” he says, laughing. “So we came looking for them.”

Moran settles into an easygoing banter, with a relaxed voice that reveals none of the pressures of the many roles he juggles in a given day: composer, musician, bandleader, teacher, administrator, husband, father. “I like to be busy,” he says simply.

And now there’s one more title Moran can claim. As of early 2012, he is officially a Steinway Artist. A longtime devotee of the Steinway legacy, Moran’s home studio features a newly-acquired Steinway Model M grand piano, an instrument he says “marks the first time I’ve owned a piano that I actually feel is inspiring to play.” The piano is not his first introduction to the Steinway sound, however. In fact, he says the purchase is a natural evolution of the lifelong influence Steinway pianos have had on his music. A Texas native, Moran attended Houston’s High School for Performing and Visual Arts and had the opportunity to play on Steinway grand pianos in his school. Over the years, he’s performed, studied, taught, and practiced on a wide range of Steinway pianos.

To read more click here

Free "Fats Waller Dance Party" Concert Kicks Off Harlem Stages's 30th Season July 28

IMN

July 12th, 2012

From: JazzCorner.com

Free “Fats Waller Dance Party” Concert Kicks Off Harlem Stages’s 30th Season July 28

A free outdoor concert featuring the critically acclaimed “Fats Waller Dance Party” created by pianist/composer Jason Moran and singer/songwriter/bassist Meshell Ndegeocello, both of whom will perform, kicks off Harlem Stage’s 30th Anniversary season on Saturday, July 28, starting at 5 p.m. at Annunciation Park/Bruce Paltrow Field adjacent to the historic Harlem Stage Gatehouse.

Commissioned by Harlem Stage, where the concert had its World Premiere last year, “Fats Waller Dance Party” was one of the stand-out events of its season, playing to four consecutive sold-out houses and significant critical acclaim. Since then the show has been seen in Chicago and will launch a national tour this fall. Subsequently, Blue Note Records will release a studio recording of the project. Moran, a Harlem resident who has worked with Harlem Stage for more than a decade, has performed numerous times at the organization’s historic Gatehouse theater and advocates for the organization’s work with artists of color. Moran has achieved enormous critical success over the past few years, receiving a 2011 McArthur Fellowship, Downbeat Magazine’s Jazz Artist of the Year Award in 2011, and more recently being named Artistic Advisor for Jazz at the Kennedy Center.

“We are so proud to welcome Jason and Meshell back to Harlem Stage to revive this amazing performance, kick off our anniversary celebration, and bring Fats Waller’s music back to the community that helped inspire it so many years ago,” says Executive Director Pat Cruz. “Despite being a fast-rising superstar, Jason continues to call this neighborhood home. He will always have an artistic home with us and we look forward to a fantastic event this summer.”

To read more click here

Jason Moran, New Master

IMN

June 26th, 2012

From The New Yorker

Jason Moran, New Master
By: Hendrik Hertzberg

The other night, I went to hear Jason Moran play solo piano. I went because my friend Fred Kaplan, who writes about jazz for the Times when he isn’t writing about national security for Slate, told me to. “Go,” said Fred. So I went. And I’ve been thinking about it and savoring it ever since.

The venue was the Carnegie Room of the public library in Nyack, New York, a Hudson River village twenty miles north of Manhattan. The Carnegie Room isn’t quite Carnegie Hall—the Room seats just ninety-seven people, all in folding chairs, compared to the Hall’s twenty-eight hundred. But both owe their existence to the same philanthropist; both have a seasoned-wood, Gilded Age feel; and both are good places to listen to music.

After everyone had settled in, Jason Moran, carrying a book, strolled out from between the bookshelves and sat down at the piano, a Yamaha grand. Moran, who is thirty-seven, has a round, boyishly friendly, fashionably stubbled face, and he was wearing a leather vest, blue jeans, and a tan porkpie hat. We—me, wife, and kid—were seated two-thirds of the way back. We couldn’t see much more of him than the porkpie hat. So we mostly just closed our eyes and gave ourselves over to the sound.

There is no mistaking Moran’s grounding in—and respect for, and absorption of—the elders of jazz (and not just jazz). His new gig at the Kennedy Center makes him, ex officio, a curator. But his way of paying tribute to the old masters is not to impersonate but to personify—not to sound like them, but to be like them: to create something altogether new. From now on, I’m paying attention.

To read more click here

Grammar: Documenting Jason Moran

IMN

June 14th, 2012

From: The Revivalist

Grammar: Documenting Jason Moran

Filmmakers Gregg Conde and Radiclani Clytus are currently in the process of making a documentary film about the evolution of jazz and hip-hop as portrayed through the artistic collaborations of Jason Moran. For the past year and a half, the filmmakers have been financing the film themselves. Now they are looking for help from the community to fund the next two years which will conclude filming as well as post-production. Check out the excerpt below:

Grammar (excerpt) from think/feel on Vimeo.

Confirmed Tourdates As Of

IMN

June 26th, 2013: Horseshoe Tavern Toronto, ON, CANADA [Fats Waller Dance Party featuring Jason Moran and Meshell Ndegeocello]
June 27th, 2013: Confederation Park Ottawa, ON, CANADA [Fats Waller Dance Party featuring Jason Moran and Meshell Ndegeocello]
June 29th, 2013: Theatre Jean Duceppe, Place des Arts Montreal, QC, CANADA [Fats Waller Dance Party featuring Jason Moran and Meshell Ndegeocello]
August 10th, 2013: Richmond Jazz Festival, Maymont Park Richmond, VA USA [Jason Moran and the Bandwagon]