Jason Moran

Jason Moran (born January 21, 1975) is an American jazz pianist, composer, and educator involved in multimedia art and theatrical installations.

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 was joined on the album by Osby, drummer Eric Harland (a classmate of Moran's at the Manhattan School, and the one who recommended him to Osby), vibraphonist Stefon Harris and acoustic bassist Lonnie Plaxico.

Moran recorded first with Greg Osby and debuted as a band leader with the 1999 album Soundtrack to Human Motion.

Since then, Moran has released albums with his trio The Bandwagon, solo, as a sideman, and with other bands.

He combines post-bop and avant-garde jazz, blues, classical music, stride piano, and hip hop.

Moran was born in Houston, Texas, and grew up in the Pleasantville neighborhood 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, and through a relationship with John T. Biggers and a collection of their own.

Moran began training at classical piano playing, in Yelena Kurinets' Suzuki method music school, when he was six.

Moran's next album, 2000's Facing Left (after a work by Egon Schiele ), featured a trio that formed out of Osby's group, New Directions: 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.

Black Stars was included in NPR's "The 50 Most Important Recordings of the Decade."

In 2002, Moran released a solo album, Modernistic, and followed it in 2003 with a live trio album, recorded at New York's Village Vanguard, called The Bandwagon.

That same summer he appeared in the Montreal International Jazz Festival, first partnering with Lee Konitz, and then with the trio.

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.

In 2004 he played on Don Byron's Ivey-Divey.

The Ivey-Divey Trio (sometimes a quartet ) toured for a number of years, from the Monterey Jazz Festival 2004 to Montreal's Jazz Festival in 2006 to WinterJazzFest in 2009.

Moran's 2005 album Same Mother, an exploration of the blues, brought guitarist Marvin Sewell into the Bandwagon mix.

Moran's 2006 release, Artist in Residence, included a number of selections from different works commissioned by museums, all of which premiered in 2005: "Milestone" is centered on a visual work by Adrian Piper from the Walker Art Center; "The Shape, the Scent, the Feel of Things" was incorporated into a preexisting installation of that name by artist Joan Jonas; and "RAIN", inspired by ring shouts from African American slaves, is a recording of The Bandwagon with guests Marvin Sewell, Ralph Alessi and Abdou Mboup.

Critical reception to Artist in Residence has been arguably colder that to his other releases.

Moran's IN MY MIND, premiered in 2007, is a multimedia presentation inspired by Thelonious Monk's 1959 "large band" concert at The Town Hall in New York City.

It utilises filmed and taped material of Monk's rehearsal, found in the archive of W. Eugene Smith, and video art by David Dempewolf.

A text-laden painting from Glenn Ligon extracted the words "In My Mind" - which Monk says on one of Smith's tapes – as did Moran, incorporating the soundbite into the set.

The program is played by The Big Bandwagon: the trio with a largely changeable five piece horn section.

The New York Times wrote: "It had a magical balance of theory and intuition, and the crowd stayed fully with it."

In April 2007 Moran took the piano in Charles Lloyd's New Quartet, succeeding Geri Allen.

The February 2009 installation is the subject of a documentary film of the same name.

He was the last member to join the group, which keeps touring (as of 2014), having recorded one studio album and two live ones.