BEYOND THE STAGE | Jason Moran and The Bandwagon

Pianist and composer Jason Moran has established himself as a risk-taker and trendsetter for new directions in jazz. Rolling Stone calls him “the most provocative thinker in current jazz.” It’s that incomparable talent and unyielding drive towards innovation that earned Moran a prestigious MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship and the title of Kennedy Center Artistic Director for Jazz. Since 2000, Moran and his trio The Bandwagon (Tarus Mateen and Nasheet Waits) have dazzled audiences at elite venues worldwide. Moran has also performed with many acclaimed artists such as Charles Lloyd and Dave Holland, he composed a ballet for Alzonzo King LINES Ballet, conceived a jazz and skateboarding collaboration, wrote the film score for Selma, and paid homage to two legendary pianists in his Blue Note album, All Rise: A Joyful Elegy for Fats Waller, and his multimedia program, In My Mind: Monk at Town Hall 1959. A prolific composer, Moran released two albums in 2018 – Looks of a Lot, which was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Center, and Music for Joan Jonas, a collaboration with performance artist Joan Jonas containing excerpts from three of their major collaborations. The Los Angeles Times hails Moran, “a startlingly gifted pianist with a relentless thirst for experimentation.”