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| Jason Moran at Kumble Theater 651 ARTS presents Blue Note recording artist Jason Moran in An Evening of Original and Standards at Long Island University's Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts. On the heels of his most recent CD Same Mother, Moran and his group, The Bandwagon, come to Brooklyn, a place he calls “...a cultural breeding ground, ” offering up an evening of cutting-edge, innovative jazz that pushes the limit. Moran will perform works from Same Mother, his sixth as a leader for Blue Note. His group, The Bandwagon, continues to fire away at complacency and orthodoxy, flummoxing contemporary audiences' notions about the classic piano trio. Same Mother comes about through invocations of gutbucket and roadhouse blues as an organizing principle. Says Moran, “I wanted to do something improvisationally that was coming from a raw blues expression--to improvise with focus rather than thinking about chords. The charts for the compositions were really loose and really sparse.” About this trip to Brooklyn, he adds “...when people come to see this, even if they're seeing me for the first time, they're getting me doing the pull-up I could never do...like the 230th pull-up, when I'd only done 230 before.” Since his formidable emergence on the national music scene in the late 90s, pianist Jason Moran has become a leading light and a man to watch in modern jazz. In almost every category that matters--improvisation, composition, group concept, repertoire, technique and technological experimentation--Moran and his group, The Bandwagon, have challenged the status quo each time out. He expands his song-palette by making seemingly exotic yet astute choices in material that mark a bolder, generational bent. These include Bjork's Joga (brought into jazz consideration on Facing Left) and hip hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa's Planet Rock which Moran has now twice recorded--first on his solo piano studio album, Modernistic and then on The Bandwagon, his group's live album from The Village Vanguard. For more information, visit www.jasonmoran.com. write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Jazz News :: home page |