Jason Moran
Moran was born in Houston, Texas, and grew up in the Pleasantville neighbourhood of Houston. His parents, Andy, an investment banker, and Mary, a teacher, encouraged his musical and artistic sensibilities at the Houston Symphony, museums and galleries. Moran began training at classical piano playing, in Yelena Kurinets’ Suzuki method music school, when he was six. However, his father’s extensive record collection (around 10,000 in 2004), varied from Motown to classical to avant-garde jazz. As a boy he developed a preference for hip hop music over the piano until, at the age of 13, he first heard the song “′Round Midnight” by Thelonious Monk at home, and switched his efforts to jazz. Monk’s childlike melodies, with their many silent spaces, struck him as relatively easy to play and not overly ornate, while the rhythms were reminiscent of hip hop songs, and the harmonies unorthodox. Both jazz and hip hop were part of Houston’s skateboarding scene in which he was involved. He attended Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA), graduating in 1993 from the jazz program headed by Robert Morgan. In his senior year, he was student director of the school’s jazz combo and part of the Texas high school all-state jazz ensemble. He then enrolled at the Manhattan School of Music, from which he would graduate in 1997 with a BM degree, to study with pianist Jaki Byard. The next year he participated in Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead exclusive workshop, composing the piece “Make a Decision” for the final concert. In 1997, when Moran was a senior at Manhattan School of Music, he was invited to join the band of saxophonist Greg Osby for a European tour, following a conversation that lingered mostly on older piano jazz, and no audition. Osby liked his playing, and Moran continued to play with Osby’s group upon their return to the United States, making his first recorded appearance on Osby’s 1997 Blue Note album Further Ado. He would subsequently appear on several other Osby albums, and Osby would introduce him to avant-garde pianists Muhal Richard Abrams and Andrew Hill. His stint with Osby led Moran to sign a contract of his own with Blue Note. His debut Soundtrack to Human Motion was released in 1998. Moran’s next album, 2000’s Facing Left (after a work by Egon Schiele, featured a trio Moran, bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits. Compositions were some of Moran’s and some by Mateen, Duke Ellington, Björk and Byard. The trio, which came to be known as The Bandwagon, was joined by saxophonist and pianist Sam Rivers for their next album, Black Stars, which appeared in 2001.In 2002,
