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Matt Moran

Vibraphonist and tunesmith Matt Moran "plays the vibraphone like a speed-chess master, always darting off into flurries of ingenious, unexpected activity" (Village Voice). He has performed and recorded with artists as diverse as Mat Maneri, Lionel Hampton, Combustible Edison, Ellery Eskelin, and Saban Bajramovic. Moran's sound is integral to an innovative group of New York musicians who blur the boundaries of composition, improvisation, and folk traditions.

Moran received a Master's degree in jazz composition from New England Conservatory in 1995. At NEC he studied with the visionary composer and multi-instrumentalist Joseph Maneri, and has continued to learn from Maneri through performances with him. Since moving to New York in 1995 he has performed both as leader and sideman, including billings for the Knitting Factory's What Is Jazz? Festival, the JVC Jazz Festival, the Panasonic Village Jazz Festival, Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, and the Vision Festival, as well as leading tours in the U.S. and Europe.

TimeOut New York praises Moran and his collaborators for "such unusual breadth and wonderful inconsistency that calling it simply 'jazz' paints it into an inaccurate corner. Their performances don't focus on displays of whirring virtuosity (though that's certainly a part) or even on the nebulous quality of 'soul.' Instead, the musicians attempt to work beyond or outside the patterns to which they would ordinarily gravitate."

Also active as a performer, teacher, and curator in the Balkan folk music scene, Moran plays traditional percussion with artists such as Lefteris Bournias, Raif Hyseni, Demetri Tashie, and other master musicians from the Balkans who have immigrated to New York. With Slavic Soul Party!, he sparked "Balkan Cabaret", a downtown music series for Balkan and Balkan-inspired music.

Moran currently leads the groups Sideshow and Slavic Soul Party! He is also active performing and recording with John Hollenbeck's Claudia Quintet, the Mat Maneri Quintet, Theo Bleckmann, Dan Levin, Nate Wooley, Kavala Brass Band, and Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass Band.

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Album Review

Ivo Perelman, Nate Wooley, Mat Maneri, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Joe Morris, Matt Moran: Seven Skies Orchestra

Read "Seven Skies Orchestra" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian


Ever the intrepid innovator, saxophonist Ivo Perelman takes his music in a new direction on the double-disc set, Seven Skies Orchestra. After a long series, primarily of duets, Perelman returns to a larger ensemble setting, a sextet in this case. That is not the only difference between this release and his previous output; the music here, although still entirely improvised and easily recognizable as Perelman's, moves in a more spacious, contemplative direction, less introspective and more outgoing. Vibraphonist ...

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Album Review

Ivo Perelman: Seven Skies Orchestra

Read "Seven Skies Orchestra" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


In another reality, where the love one makes is what gets the headlines, the big money, the streaming specials, ceaselessly inquisitive saxophonist and downtown legend Ivo Perelman might just top the list of good guys. The guy who pushes for the better mind, the better heart, and confesses it all to tape or lacquer or binary code; chronicling one man's pursuit of the day. while hopefully inspiring others to cut the course the same. Even before the most ...

4
Album Review

Ivo Perelman: Tuning Forks

Read "Tuning Forks" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian


Intrepid improviser and tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman takes his explorations in yet another direction on the captivating Tuning Forks. A duet with vibraphonist Matt Moran, this richly textured work primarily draws inspiration from the musical and healing properties of vibrations. For this, and subsequent releases, Perelman resurrects his previously defunct label Ibeji. The overall ambience is introspective and wistful; the free flow of ideas between the two musicians is quite lyrical. The seamless camaraderie allows for a natural ...

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Album Review

Audible Spirits: Audible Spirits

Read "Audible Spirits" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Audible Spirits is not your father's or for that matter your grandmother's book of standards. Vibraphonist Matt Moran, trombonist Curtis Hasselbring, and vocalist Sarah Elizabeth Charles reinvent, reinterpret, and definitely reimagine eight classic jazz compositions. For a living jazz musician of any age, there is a book of songs that is de rigueur in jazz education. This is also required if one is to sit in on jam sessions or have at the ready to quote in an improvisation. Most ...

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Album Review

William Parker: Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World

Read "Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


If multi-instrumentalist/composer William Parker's ten-CD Migration Of Silence Into And Out Of The Tone World suggests a cohesive, high concept plan, it is something more. The beautifully packaged clamshell box set is comprised of mutually exclusive projects—one dating back ten years—with some common themes. There is an overall dedication of the music to “all people of the world who are searching for freedom...." Pandemic downtime resulted in Parker's accumulating enough material for many of these albums. Viewed as a whole, ...

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Album Review

Nate Wooley: Mutual Aid Music

Read "Mutual Aid Music" reviewed by John Sharpe


With Mutual Aid Music, trumpeter Nate Wooley expands the ideas that underlay his Battle Piece series, (heard on three albums on Relative Pitch Records from 2015, 2017 and 2019) to produce a double CD which absorbs and enthralls. To the original cast of accomplished improvisers, comprising saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, vibraphonist Matt Moran and pianist Sylvie Courvoisier, Wooley adds four players, who hail from contemporary classical backgrounds. Of these, pianist Cory Smythe has had the greatest exposure to jazz audiences, not ...

5
Album Review

William Parker: Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World

Read "Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World" reviewed by Giuseppe Segala


L'attività musicale di William Parker è stata copiosamente documentata da circa centocinquanta dischi, che spaziano in un caleidocopio di gruppi fondati dallo stesso contrabbassista, formazioni cooperative, omaggi, collaborazioni. Ma nessun singolo lavoro, fino a questo momento, aveva focalizzato l'attenzione su un ventaglio di ispirazioni così ampio e completo come si fa ora nei dieci CD del cofanetto The Music of William Parker—Migration of Silence Into and Out of The Tone World. In questo lavoro monumentale, che viene ...

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"Superb, technically ingenious... passionate and serious, but also playful and funny. ...when Moran's short-fuse pauses ignite into four-malleted pyrotechnics, it's like hearing an angel have a seizure." —Village Voice

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Seven Skies Orchestra

Fundacja Sluchaj
2024

buy

Audible Spirits

Diskonife
2023

buy

Tuning Forks

Self Produced
2023

buy

Seven Skies Orchestra

Fundacja Sluchaj
2023

buy

Migration of Silence...

Centering Records / AUM Fidelity
2021

buy

Mutual Aid Music

Pleasure Of The Text Records
2021

buy

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