Jason Moran

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.
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Jazz & Wine of Peace 2024 - Part 1

by Luciano Rossetti
November 10, 2024

A collection of photos from the Jazz & Wine of Peace in Cormons from October 23, 2024 to October 27, 2024 featuring Jason Moran, Hamid Drake, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Anthony Joseph, Marc Copland, Joe Locke, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Jamie Saft, Ray Anderson, Michael Formanek, Michael Moore, and many others. ...

Album Review

Shabaka Hutchings: Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace

Read "Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
April 24, 2024

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes ... Since signing with with Impulse! in 2018, Shabaka Hutchings has become best known for his incendiary work on tenor saxophone with Sons Of Kemet, The Comet Is Coming and Shabaka & The Ancestors. Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace marks the start of a gentler, more instrospective phase in his music making. The trigger came during the pandemic, when Hutchings fell in love with the Japanese shakuhachi flute. The quietly spoken instrument first edged itself ...

Album Review

Charles Lloyd: The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow

Read "The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
March 26, 2024

Those of us who were going to jazz festivals in summer 1966, and were lucky enough to catch the Charles Lloyd Quartet, will likely have one tune in particular imprinted on our memories. That was because “Forest Flower" so precisely reflected the acid-drenched zeitgeist blossoming in Europe and the US. Lloyd, Keith Jarrett, Cecil McBee and Jack DeJohnette recorded the piece at the Monterey festival in September 1966, and when Forest Flower was released in early 1967, it was the ...

Album Review

Charles Lloyd: The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow

Read "The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
March 11, 2024

For a long, grateful while now the music of Charles Lloyd has rippled out from that rarified space where the ego does not prevail. A pool of depth and wonder which culminates in one masterful artwork after another, for example Wild Man Dance (Blue Note, 2015) and 8: Kindred Spirits Live from the Lobero Theater (Blue Note, 2019). Lloyd's eleventh Blue Note album, the double disc set The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow is also his first ...

Album Review

BlankFor.ms: Refract

$Read "Refract" reviewed by Neri Pollastri$

by Neri Pollastri
December 11, 2023

Uscito il primo settembre, nove mesi dopo From the Dancehall to the Battlefield, lo splendido lavoro dedicato a James Reese Europe, questo Refract illustra l'altra faccia di un autore geniale e poliedrico qual è Jason Moran. Di fatto diretto da BlankFor.ms, alias Tyler Gilmore, artista elettronico già allievo di Moran che usa nastri degradati e sintetizzatori analogici per produrre “musica emotiva," il disco sviluppa un'originalissima e assai variegata integrazione elettroacustica, mettendo materiali elettronici predeterminati a disposizione del pianista e del ...

Album Review

Jason Moran: From the Dancehall to the Battlefield

Read "From the Dancehall to the Battlefield" reviewed by Neri Pollastri

by Neri Pollastri
December 11, 2023

Uscito il primo gennaio 2023 su Bandcamp, questo album di Jason Moran, per il suo concept, per la varietà e la ricchezza, per il modo in cui fonde radici storiche e modernità è probabilmente da considerare il disco dell'anno. Il suggestivo titolo From the Dancehall to the Battlefield sintetizza la storia del mitico musicista a cui è dedicato: James Reese Europe, compositore, arrangiatore e direttore d'orchestra nero, nato a Mobile, in Alabama, nel 1881, e trasferitosi prima a ...

Album Review

BlankFor.ms - Jason Moran - Marcus Gilmore: Refract

$Read "Refract" reviewed by Pat Youngspiel$

by Pat Youngspiel
October 6, 2023

Electroacoustic music gains a new modern perspective with the sonic marvel that is Refract, a collaborative effort between degraded tapes artist Tyler Gilmore, aka BlankFor.ms, pianist Jason Moran and Marcus Gilmore on drums. An experimental series of sketched shapes featuring hovering loops turned sound- blankets, drum-set turned beat-machine and piano turned keyboard-impressionism, Refract's largely improvised fabric makes for one of the year's most adventurous and intriguing listens. Recorded with producer Sun Chung, the sonic properties are a focal ...

Event

Celebrity Series Of Boston Announces 2022/23 Season

Source: Stephanie Janes PR
May 5, 2022

The Celebrity Series of Boston announces its 2022/23 season today, marking 84 years of bringing touring and local performing artists to Boston. In this new season, audiences will find a diverse and dazzling array of artists in one of the Series’ largest seasons ever. Expanded programming offers audiences new venues to explore, artist debuts, beloved returning artists, and in-person and streaming options for both the ticketed and free Neighborhood Arts events. With classical music and contemporary/jazz curated by guest programmers ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jason Moran

Source: Michael Ricci
January 21, 2022

All About Jazz is celebrating Jason Moran's birthday today!

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 ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jason Moran

Source: Michael Ricci
January 21, 2021

All About Jazz is celebrating Jason Moran's birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jason Moran

Source: Michael Ricci
January 21, 2020

All About Jazz is celebrating Jason Moran's birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jason Moran

Source: Michael Ricci
January 21, 2019

All About Jazz is celebrating Jason Moran's birthday today!

Place our Musician of the Day widget on your ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jason Moran

Source: Michael Ricci
January 21, 2018

All About Jazz is celebrating Jason Moran's birthday today!

Place our Musician of the Day widget on your ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jason Moran

Source: Michael Ricci
January 21, 2017

All About Jazz is celebrating Jason Moran's birthday today!

Place our Musician of the Day widget on your ...
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Performance / Tour

NEC Faculty Member Jason Moran Led A Performance Of "The Music Of Andrew Hill"

Source: Braithwaite & Katz Communications
February 9, 2016

As the culmination of one of his regular teaching residencies, NEC faculty member Jason Moran presented a performance of the music of his mentor Andrew Hill in a concert titled simply “The Music of Andrew Hill" on Thursday, January 28. Moran led NEC students in the re-imagining of Hill's music, including material drawn from several landmark albums. The concert took three different approaches to the world of Andrew Hill. Interspersed through the evening, four pianists took on songs dating from ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jason Moran

Source: Michael Ricci
January 21, 2016

All About Jazz is celebrating Jason Moran's birthday today!

Place our Musician of the Day widget on your ...
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Event

Upcoming Free Jazz Events At Bric's Celebrate Brooklyn!

Source: Matt Gross
May 14, 2015

SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 7:30 P.M. JASON MORAN’S FATS WALLER DANCE PARTY | BUTLER, BERNSTEIN & THE HOT 9 The astonishingly inventive pianist and composer Jason Moran unleashes his fun side in this “joyous and foolish and graceful” (The New York Times) event, a spectacle complete with dancers and costumes that takes the stride innovator Fats Waller as a jumping off point to dig into grooves that flirt with everything from Motown to house to hip-hop. For all Moran’s skill and ...
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"Although he has the facility to play with breathtaking fleetness, his uniqueness traces to his refusal to be locked into predictable, bebop-based patterns." —The Los Angeles Times

"Moran is like no other pianist at work. His improvisations are dynamic, eruptive, keyed to the compositions at hand." —Village Voice

"When Jason Moran performs with his trio, Bandwagon, these days, he engages in a ritual that befits one of the most independent minds now working in jazz." —The New York Times

"Of course, countless other jazz musicians have tried to reinvent eras past, including the elliptical 1960s, with varying degrees of success. But it's Moran's writing, the bane of so many a young pyrotechnic lions, that separates him." —Newsweek