Jason Moran solo

Is art not always also dialogue – not solely with contemporaries but also with all those who have left their traces in the past? Or how is it that a 13-year-old in classical piano training who loves hip hop suddenly sits in front of his parents record player and is thrown out of his coordinates by Thelonious Monks’ eccentricity, rhythm and audacity? This 13-year-old is now 41, and he learned something important on that day almost 30 years ago: you have to take headstrong steps into the future, and look back respectfully. Jason Moran has never recovered from his “Round Midnight” shock. He wanted to play like Monk, percussively, simple and complex at the same time; he wanted to listen inwardly to discover something new – and succeeded. Moran is one of the unique, prized jazz pianists of this time. He has recorded several records and is more than sideman for many musicians – ranging from Charles Lloyd to Cassandra Wilson through to Lee Konitz. He loves museums and creates sound image installations with artists, experiments with different forms, honours Fats Waller on one evening, and his teacher Jaki Byard on another; plays in bands and as a soloist – and when he sits alone at the grand piano he creates an empathetic dialogue between the past and present, raw, full of energy and simultaneously with compelling soulfulness.