Jason Moran
Piano

Jason Moran

(1975–)

United States

Jason Moran (b. 1975) — Piano. Led Black Stars, Ten. Worked with Nasheet Waits, Tarus Mateen, Sam Rivers.

Moran is interested not only in jazz as music but as culture, collaborating with visual art and installation. As artistic director at the Kennedy Center he is trying to change the presentation of jazz itself. At the piano his most visible debt is to Thelonious Monk — spare, angular, deeply thoughtful.

Jason Moran's albums

Omega
Omega
Immanuel Wilkins · 2020

Jason Moran functions not just as a performing pianist but as a producer-mentor to younger musicians. He produced Immanuel WilkinsImmanuel WilkinsImmanuel Wilkinsイマニュエル・ウィルキンス's debut OmegaOmegaOmegaImmanuel Wilkins · 2020 (2020), which the New York Times named the top jazz album of 2020. With his band Bandwagon, he continually explores the boundary between technology and improvisation.

— New York Times Jazz Albums of 2020, Giovanni Russonello, 2020

Jason Moran's albums

Jason MoranJason MoranJason Moranジェイソン・モラン is a pianist, visual artist, composer, and former artistic director of jazz programming at the Kennedy Center. His approach — freely crossing stride piano and hip-hop — treats jazz as cultural act as much as music.

— Jason Moran, Kennedy Center, 2024