Mark Turner, a great jazz pianist in his own right, once described his contemporary, Jason Moran, as possessing a musical voice "...unique among an onslaught of talented pianists. Exhilarating, challenging and animated are just a view of the ways to describe his delivery."
For Moran, a virtuoso on the keys, an instrument he's played since the age of 6, and his group the Bandwagon - bassist Tarus Mateen, drummer Nasheet Waits and latest edition guitarist Marvin Sewell - continue to explore the musical waters on Moran's brand new work, "Same Mother."
With this album, his sixth for Blue Note Records, Moran furthers his technical know-how on the piano and did so in the context of the blues.
The name of the work has double meaning for Moran since he recorded the album around the time his mother was dying from cancer. However, the title, in fact, came from a comment Moran's wife, Alicia, said in a discussion about famed dancer Savion Glover, saying that both jazz and blues dance movements come from the same mother.
With that in mind, Moran created a work that honors the emotion and composition of the blues within the jazz idiom by playing covers that he defines as containing aspects of the genre and original pieces that are reminiscent of his hometown, Houston, Texas.
Moran teams up again with Andrew Hill for a song he co-wrote with the jazz great entitled "Aubade" that he approached especially with his mother in mind.
It's no shock that Moran, who listens to virtually everything, considers some of his favorite albums John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" and essentially anything recorded by Thelonious Monk. However, one might be surprised to learn that Bjork's "Homogenic" also made the top-five list.
His expansive and divergent tastes show up on "Same Mother" with his selection of covers by musicians ranging from blues legend Albert King to jazz pianist Mal Waldron to Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev. The latter cover features a resophonic slide guitar played by Sewell.
Moran left Texas for New York City fresh out of high school in 1993 to attend the Manhattan School of Music. There, he studied under the tutelage of Jaki Byard. Moran still resides in Manhattan, a city he feels serves as an endless well of inspiration.
The Beach Reporter sat down with Moran this week to talk about his new album which arrived in stores this past Tuesday.
The Beach Reporter: You brother wrote a beautiful dedication of sorts to your mother as part of the album's liner notes. Did you ask him to do this for you?
Jason Moran: Yes, I did ask him. He has written for my liner notes for my first and second records also. He likes writing and I always enjoy giving him projects like these. This album was a bit loaded because of the situation that was going on with our mother at the same time. She was sick with cancer and she passed away. So, you know the music was recorded at a really interesting point. My brother hadn't written anything while she was sick so this was one of the first things he was able to write. He always comes through with a perfect way of saying things.
Are you the only musician in your immediate family?
Yes, but we were all were playing instruments at a time. My older brother was playing guitar and violin and my younger brother and I were playing piano, and I kind of stuck with it. I was really the only one to continue to pursue it as a career.
Because you were recording at the time your mom was sick...
Yes, the day after I was down in Houston visiting her in the hospital, I came back to New York and we then did the record. So everything was very fresh. The images, the emotions, continued for a couple of months after the recording. But she got to hear the recording and she got to really talk about it with me. So I was glad she was able to be a part of all my projects that have come. She never missed anything - my No. 1 fan.
Are some of these songs based on your memories and experiences with your mom?
Some of them and in other pieces I think a few of them just reminded me of what I knew she would like. A piece like "Aubade" (pronounced O-baud), which is something that I wrote with Andrew ... I know she would enjoy - a moody piece that is kind of easygoing in a way. I knew that she would like that and the piece that my wife wrote, "The Field." That was her type of thing and it's always important for me with any record to put something on there that at least my mom would like.
Part of the title for the first and last song you use the term 'Gangsterism.' Did you come up with this word?
Actually, I stole it from Jean Michel Basquiat from one of his paintings (Basquiat was a major figure in the New York art scene in the 1980s and died of a heroine overdose in 1988). It's written on his painting called "Hollywood Africans." He has a lot of words inscribed in the piece and this word is one of them. Just as a visual artist works in varying mediums - clay, metal, canvas, etc. - I wanted to create Gangsterism within a different medium by using two different parts of a day - "...on the rise" and "...on the set."
Since you can play anything, how much focus do you have when recording an album?
Anything can go, but the common thread is the musicians and myself. I think when we approach a song, we all have our own traits within the music. I will address or not address a certain aspect of a song. I usually don't cut off where something can fall in line with a concept. In this record, the main focus is the blues. I really wanted to think about the blues in the broader sense. So, things that I thought to be appropriate like Alexander Nevsky's "Field of the Dead" (the score from director Sergei Eisenstein's epic "Alexander Nevsky" written by Prokofiev) is just as appropriate as "I'll Play the Blues for You" by Albert King. What King and Prokofiev have in common is that their music can be very hard yet very genteel at the same time. They are musicians from different worlds and different eras, but with similar emotions and they were able to convey that through pieces that they would write or perform. So, this is what I tend to think about when putting together pieces to record for an album. I want to find that thread within me and that thread with each other absent of me.
Something like 'Jump Up,' that is some blues.
Yeah (laughs).
That's why I asked the question about your mom and how much she inspired you with this work. I heard this song and thought of a memory maybe when you were a child sitting in the living room or something listening to music your mom put on the player. This album kind of creates a balance between musical ups and downs, the sad and the hopeful, the dark yet romantic. Is that always your intent to create a balance of opposite emotions?
Well, that's the goal. Whether it's achieved is something else (laughs). You should hopefully be able to listen to the entire record and have it really take you somewhere just as a novel would. That's definitely the goal and also as a musician/artist you want to also kind of exhibit what you can do, what you are capable of.
Your wife wrote the song 'The Field.' Does she play an instrument as well?
She is a classical singer. This piece was actually written for piano and voice, and I just did an instrumental version of it. She occasionally writes these amazing art songs and I've always been in love with them so now I'm finally recording some of them. This is the first one I've recorded. She plays the piano very well and what impressed me about her most was that she was able to sit down at the piano and I would sit at another and we would improvise back and forth. She was just phenomenal.
So for someone who is as good on the keys as you are, when you record an album are you thinking this song is for the musician and this song is for the average listener?
Um, well, maybe, hmm ... (pause) ... yeah, you're right because a song like "I'll Play the Blues for You" or "Jump Up," I think those may be the first pieces that you can halfway dance to it for most of it. That's a pivotal part of what I thought the blues is. A piece where we kind of jump around and travel into different areas like "G Suit Saltation," those are probably strictly musician songs. But I have found that most of the time when I think that's the case, they are as equally successful among a lay person. A couple of albums ago, I recorded a song that I thought was very complex and I had this really bizarre theory of how I came up with it. It ended up being one of the pieces that my mom thought was the most lyrical and became her favorite song of all time. She has a keen ear also, but you never can really tell what a person will like. That's the beauty of putting something out there, everybody is going to have an entirely different reaction.
Has any recent music really hit you?
The last De La Soul record is really amazing for a band that has been in hip-hop for so long. They are doing it for me still and Ghostface Killah is still doing it for me. His record came out maybe six or eight months ago. These artists have really blasted me.
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