Jazz Articles about Jason Moran

Jason Moran: Ten

by William Carey
June 16, 2010

Jason MoranTenBlue Note Records2010

Ten celebrates the ten year life of the Bandwagon, pianist Jason Moran's trio with bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits. The piano trio is a mainstay in the jazz tradition, and here the Bandwagon does a characteristically great job of being firmly in that tradition while also blazing a new trail.

“Blue Blocks" starts with a descending motif, planing chords in a gravitational freefall, the hint of ...

Jason Moran: Ten

by David Adler
June 12, 2010

Pianist Jason Moran offers Ten, to mark a decade with the Bandwagon, his trio with bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits, and it's an anniversary worth celebrating. But Ten is also Moran's first release since Artist In Residence (Blue Note, 2006), so it affords him the opportunity to include pieces from long-form commissioned works he's written since then. The loping, gospel-tinged “Blue Blocks" is from a multimedia suite inspired by the quilt makers of Gee's Bend, Alabama. “RFK in ...

Jason Moran Returns to Monk at Town Hall

by Eric Benson
March 12, 2009

Jason Moran and the Big Bandwagon In My Mind: Monk at Town Hall 1959Town Hall New York, New York February 27, 2009

Jason Moran was playing perfectly. He'd just begun his solo introduction to “In My Mind: Monk at Town Hall, 1959"—his tribute to, and reimagining of, Thelonious Monk's historic concert--dashing off a few strains of “'Round Midnight" in a medley that had him leaping across the keyboard with poise and polish. ...

Jason Moran

by Martin Longley
December 13, 2008

Pianist Jason Moran usually plays well within the jazz tradition, but often adopts a sideways slant, open to electronic interference or maybe an askew cover version of a pop or rap tune. Growing up in Houston, he went on to study at the Manhattan School Of Music, becoming firmly entrenched on the New York scene.

He's now becoming increasingly concerned with the world of multimedia presentation, the latest example of which is “In My Mind: Monk ...

Jason Moran: Artist in Residence

by AAJ Italy Staff
November 7, 2006

Abbiamo spesso parlato in queste pagine di Jason Moran, tra i pianisti più significativi della sua generazione, tanto più interessante in quanto si muove spesso in territori fortemente codificati. In Artist In Residence Moran ha riunito e “montato" alcuni estratti di tre commissioni ricevute nel 2005, rispettivamente dal Lincoln Center, dal Walker Art Center di Minneapolis e dal Dia:Beacon. Il rapporto del pianista con le altre arti - il cinema ad esempio è una delle sue grandi passioni - è ...

Jason Moran: Artist in Residence

by Joel Roberts
October 14, 2006

While most jazz artists, even the great ones, tend to stick to the tried and true, Jason Moran has risen to the upper echelon of the jazz world by constantly challenging his audience. Listeners never really know what to expect from the 31-year-old pianist except that it's going to be fresh, intellectually rigorous, exceedingly of-the-moment music drawn from a variety of unanticipated sources. His latest release, a followup to last year's blues-inspired Same Mother, is no exception. ...

Jason Moran: Artist in Residence

by Mark F. Turner
October 2, 2006

Art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, and Jason Moran's Artist In Residence is no exception. An enigmatic traditionalist, Moran has produced releases that are as diverse as his reinterpretation the blues on Same Mother (Blue Note, 2005) or his conceptualization of the soundtrack of daily life on his debut, Soundtrack to Human Motion (Blue Note, 1999). With this ambitious seventh recording, he again brings fertile ideas to fruition with pieces resulting from recent commissions he accepted ...