Jason Moran: Same Mother

The addition of guitarist Marvin Sewell to his stellar trio gives Moran's ensemble a relaxed feeling, and brings on their release of natural emotional expression. Together, the foursome explores blues themes with an improviser's acumen.

Moran, a physical pianist who likes to explore the keyboard with a forceful attack, "gets down" each time that he finds release in the music's history. "I'll Play the Blues for You" finds the quartet ruminating over the sensual feelings that the music releases in everybody. With Mal Waldron's "Fire Waltz" he explores the kind of gentle animation that can reflect a happy-go-lucky local or a cell-bound inmate trying to cope with the world around him. Passion surges throughout the album.

With his impressions of blues and jazz in a Southern prison setting, Moran tells a story. His quartet wends its way from nighttime stillness to anxious rumbles. Sewell's expressive guitar makes a perfect partner for the pianist, as the pair moves casually from scene to scene. Stillness and open spaces occupy a large part of the program, but its inherent message of inner strife and relaxed coping methods carries with it a valuable lesson—both for the music and for the soul.

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