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Product Description

Jason Moran & The Bandwagon Celebrate Ten Years With New Album

In 1999, the same year that Jason Moran released his debut Soundtrack To Human Motion, the prodigy pianist and composer also joined New Directions, a band made up of young stars from the Blue Note roster that went on tour in celebration of the label's 60th anniversary. At the core of New Directions was the genesis of a rhythm section--with Moran, bassist Tarus Mateen, and drummer Nasheet Waits--that would go on to become one of the most enduringly creative piano trios in jazz.

Ten years later, the trailblazing trio--which Moran has since dubbed The Bandwagon--headed into Avatar Studios in Manhattan to record Ten, the most assured and focused album of Moran's acclaimed career, a snapshot of a mature band with a decade of shared musical experience from which to draw. The album, Moran's first in four years, will be released on EMI's Blue Note Records.

"Ten is our first record that doesn't rely on a concept to drive it. The only concept is us as a band today," says Moran. "As our band has evolved over ten years, there's a certain ease that we now function within, an ease to let the music be. On some of my earlier recordings, I was making sure I exposed my ideas as a thinker. Now we refrain from jumping through every musical window of opportunity, but only jump through the good windows."

Befitting the man who Rolling Stone called "the most provocative thinker in current jazz," Moran draws the material for Ten from a wide variety of sources. "Blue Blocks," which opens the album with a bluesy cascade of chords, comes from Live: Time, a piece commissioned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art that was inspired by the quilters of Gee's Bend, Alabama. The elegiac "Feedback Pt. 2" was part of a piece commissioned by the Monterey Jazz Festival for which Moran drew inspiration from Jimi Hendrix's performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival and used samples of the guitarist's feedback.

"RFK In The Land Of Apartheid" is the main theme from a film score that Moran composed for the documentary RFK In The Land Of Apartheid about Robert Kennedy's 1966 visit to South Africa and his famous "Ripple Of Hope" speech. "Pas De Deux" comes from Moran's first-ever dance collaboration with choreographer Alonzo King's Lines Ballet company. "Old Babies" gives us another window into one of the most profound influences on Moran these days, his twin sons Jonas and Malcolm, born in 2007.

In addition to songs by Leonard Bernstein ("Big Stuff") and minstrel pioneer Bert Williams ("Nobody"), there are also compositions by three of Moran's foremost influences: Thelonious Monk, Andrew Hill, and Jaki Byard. "Crepuscule With Nellie" was featured in Moran's multimedia concert event In My Mind: Monk At Town Hall, 1957. "Play To Live" is a piece Moran co-wrote with his teacher Hill, who died of lung cancer in 2007.

Track Listing

1. Blue Blocks (Jason Moran)
2. RFK in the Land of Apartheid (J. Moran)
3. Feedback Pt. 2 (J. Moran)
4. Crepuscule with Nellie (Thelonious Monk)
5. Study No. 6 (Conlon Nancarrow)
6. Pas de Deux - Lines Ballet (J. Moran)
7. Study No. 6 (C. Nancarrow)
8. Gangsterism Over 10 years (J. Moran)
9. Big Stuff (Leonard Bernstein)
10. Play to Live (Andrew Hill/Jason Moran)
11. The Subtle One (Tarus Mateen)
12. To Bob Vatel of Paris (Jaki Byard)
13. Old Babies (J. Moran)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4772 in Music
• Released on: 2010-06-21
• Number of discs: 1
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .19 pounds

Features

• MORAN JASON TEN

About the Artist
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 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.