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Jason Moran (born January 21, 1975, in Houston, Texas) is a jazz pianist, composer and educator, heavily involved in multimedia art and theatrical installations.

Moran recoded first with Greg Osby and debuted as a band leader with the 1999 album Soundtrack to Human Motion. Since then, he released eight other albums- with his trio The Bandwagon, solo or leading other ensambles- and appeared in about thirty albums as sideman. He has garnered much critical acclaim and won a number of awards for his playing and compositional skills, which combine elements of post-bop and avant-garde jazz, blues, classical music, stride piano, hip hop among others.

Early years
Moran grew up in Pleasantville, Houston, Texas. His high middle-class parents, Andy, a 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. However, his father's extensive records collection (around 10,000 in 2004), varied from Motown, to classical to avant-garde jazz.

As a boy he developed a preference to 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. 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 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 ensamble.

Greg Osby
He then enrolled at the Manhattan School of Music, which he would graduate in 1997 with a BM degree, to study with pianist Jaki Byard. 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.

The Bandwagon
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.

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

......with a live trio album, recorded at New York's Village Vanguard, called The Bandwagon.

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 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.

"Live: Time" is a 2008 complement to the Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibition on The Quilts of Gee's Bend.

"Refraction" is a ballet Moran scored and accompanied for Alonzo King LINES Ballet in 2009.

The album Ten,  released in 2010, marked a ten year interval from the Bandwagon's debut, Facing Left. It features "Blue Blocks" off the Philadelphia Museum commission, "RFK in the Land of Apartheid," from an original score to a documentary film of the same name, and "Feedback Pt. 2", an homage to Jimi Hendrix's performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. Monk's "Crepuscule with Nellie" was recorded at the IN MY MIND tour. Ten also contains a composition by Moran and Andrew Hill, and others by Leonard Bernstein, Jaki Byard, Conlon Nancarrow and Bert Williams.

Moran's composition, "Slang", was commissioned for the 2011 Other Minds Festival in San Francisco.

In the summer of 2013 and the next, Moran accompanied, with The Bandwagon and guest Jeff Parker, skateboarding shows in SFJAZZ Center.

....the Bandwagon played their composition, "The Subtle One", to a ballet adaptation by Ronald K. Brown.

Ivey Divey
In 2004 he played in Don Byron's Ivey-Divey, (JazzTimes album of the year ). The Ivey-Divey Trio (sometimes a quartet ) toured for a number of years, from Monterey Jazz Festival 2004, to Montreal's in 2006 to WinterJezzFest 2009.

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

Charles Lloyd
In April 2007 Moran took the piano in Charles Lloyd's New Quartet, succeeding Geri Allen. He was the last member to join the group, which keep touring, recorded one studio album and two live ones. Rabo de Nube (2008) won JazzTimes album of the year. Mirror took second place in their 2010 poll. Moran and Lloyd recorded a duo album, Hagar's Song, in 2013.

Overtone Quartet
From September 2009 to about 2012 Moran toured with Dave Holland's Overtone Quartet.

Fats Waller
Since 2011 Moran has been performing the show "Fats Waller dance party", originally commissioned by Harlem Stage. It became the basis of a 2014 release, ALL RISE: A Joyful Elegy for Fats Waller, dedicated to Fats Waller and the form of popular entertainment that jazz was in his days. Participants in the fluid roster have included singers Meshell Ndegeocello, in a co-leader position, and Lisa E. Harris, drummer Charles Haynes' ensemble with trumpeter Leron Thomas and trombonist Josh Roseman, saxophonist Steve Lehman and bassist Mark Kelly.

Other
His stint with Osby led Moran to signing a contract of his own with Blue Note. His debut Soundtrack to Human Motion was released in 1999. 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.

In 2002, Moran released a solo album, Modernistic, and followed it in 2003

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

Cane was written for classical wind quintet Imani Winds - among them Moran's college classmate Toyin Spellman. It premiered in October 2008, and appeared in their album Terra Incognita in 2010; it relates to Marie Thérèse Metoyer and Moran's family history in Natchitoches, Louisiana.

Four independent short films and a feature documentary appeared in the 2000s with soundtracks by Moran (see below).

In the May 2012 Whitney Biennial, Alicia Hall Moran and Jason curated BLEED, a week-long event that involved many artists and artisans, and aimed to expose artistic processes to the point "it has to be scary". Later that year a new performance with Joan Jonas, Reanimation was first staged in dOCUMENTA (13).

In April 2014 Moran and Imani Winds premiered Jump Cut Rose, which he wrote for the quintet and a piano, In May, Looks of A Lot, a theatrical co-production with Theaster Gates on the theme of Chicago artistic history premiered in the city's Symphony Center; participants included The Bandwagon, the Kenwood Academy Jazz Band, Ken Vandermark and Katie Ernst, bassist and vocalist.

In september he appeard trice in the Monterey Jazz Festival: Leading a Fats Waller Dance Party, in a one-piano duo with Robert Glasper, and with Charles Lloyd New Quartet.

Besides recordings under his own name, Moran has recorded with a range of other musicians including Greg Osby, Steve Coleman, Charles Lloyd, Cassandra Wilson, Joe Lovano, Christian McBride, Von Freeman, and Don Byron. He also performed with Ravi Coltrane, Marian McPartland, Lee Konitz, Wayne Shorter (as substitute), Robert Glasper, violinist Jenny Scheinman, The Bad Plus, guitarist Mary Halvorson and trumpeter Ron Miles, drummer Herlin Riley, Dave Holland (Overtone Quartet), and Bill Frisell.

Teaching and organization
Moran has been on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music since 2010, where he delivers a yearly masterclass, and the Manhattan School of Music, taking over the position occupied by his former teacher, Jaki Byard. In the Kennedy Center he has been the musical adviser for jazz from 2011, and artistic director for jazz from 2014, occupying the position of Billy Taylor. Focused on attracting larger and younger audiance, he created at Kenndy the Crossroads Club.

Apart from these positions, Moran has organized events such as "713-->212: Houstonians in NYC" in January 20011 and Very Very Threadgill, a two-day festival dedicated to Henry Threadgill, his "favorite composer", in September 2014.

Moran and his family manage the granting of "Moran Scholarship Award", first set in 1994 for jazz students at HSPVA. In 2005 they set in Houston The Mary Lou Chester Moran Foundation, for similar purposes.

In 2013 he expressed support for the Justice for Jazz Artists campaign of the American Federation of Musicians.

Recognition
Closing 2010, Francis Davis wrote in Village Voice: "... Moran's only competition in the Fifth Annual Village Voice Jazz Critics' Poll was Jason Moran. Ten, his first trio album in seven years, won Album of the Year in a landslide, but that’s not all.  The pianist figured prominently on the runner-up, Rudresh Mahanthappa and Bunky Green’s Apex, and Charles Lloyd’s Mirror, which finished fourth ...  Add Paul Motian’s Lost in a Dream ... that gives the 2010 MacArthur Fellow four appearances in the Top 10"

In 2011, The Downbeat critics' poll voted Ten “Jazz Album of the Year”, while also voting Moran "Pianist of the Year" and "Jazz Artist of the Year." The New York Times chose Ten among 2010 top 10 pop and jazz albums.

Moran has won a number of awards, including The Jazz Journalists Association's "Up-n-Coming Jazz Musician" award in 2003. The Down Beat critics poll voted him Rising Star Jazz Artist, Rising Star Pianist, and Rising Star Composer for three years straight (2003–05). In 2005, Moran was also named Playboy magazine's first "Jazz Artist of the Year". In 2007, Moran was named a USA Prudential Fellow by United States Artists. In 2010, he was named a MacArthur Fellow.

In 2013, Moran held residencies in SFJAZZ, Juilliard and Molde Jazz Festival.

Another full length documentary, Grammar about "jazz through Jason Moran" and genre boundaries, is in the making, after first director Radiclani Clytus had found funding in a 2012 kickstarter campaign.

Family
Moran married Alicia Hall Moran, a mezzo-soprano singer and artistic collaborator, in 2003. They live in Harlem and have twins. He has an older brother and a younger. Two of his cousins, Tony and Michael Llorens, toured with Albert King playing piano and drums, and were recorded on In Session. His uncle Joe is a painter.

As leader

 * Soundtrack to Human Motion (1999)
 * Facing Left (2000)
 * Black Stars (2001)
 * Modernistic (2002)
 * The Bandwagon: Live at the Village Vanguard (2003)
 * Same Mother (2005)
 * Artist in Residence (2006)
 * Ten (2010)
 * ALL RISE: A Joyful Elegy for Fats Waller (2014)

As sideman
With Ralph Alessi With Don Byron With Scott Colley With Steve Coleman and Five Elements With Bunky Green With Stefon Harris With Charles Lloyd With Christian McBride With Paul Motian
 * Cognitive Dissonance (C.A.M. Jazz, 2010)
 * Baida (ECM, 2013)
 * Ivey-Divey (Blue Note, 2004)
 * Architect Of The Silent Moment (C.A.M.  Jazz, 2007)
 * The Sonic Language Of Myth – Believing, Learning, Knowing  (RCA Victor, 1999)
 * Another Place (Label Bleu, 2006)
 * Apex (Pi Recordings, 2010) leaders Rudresh Mahanthappa & Bunky Green
 * Black Action Figure (Blue Note, 1999)
 * Rabo de Nube (ECM, 2007)
 * Mirror (ECM, 2010)
 * Athens Concert (ECM, 2011)
 * Hagar's Song (ECM, 2013) As co-leader
 * Live At Tonic (Ropeadope Records, 2005)
 * Lost in a Dream (ECM, 2010) with Chris Potter

With Greg Osby With Eric Revis' 11:11 With Jenny Scheinman With Christophe Schweizer, Full Circle Rainbow With Walter Smith III With Brett Stroka With Otis Taylor With Trio 3 With Cassandra Wilson
 * Further Ado (Blue Note, 1997)
 * Friendly Fire (Blue Note, 1998) with Joe Lovano as co-leader
 * Banned in New York (Blue Note, 1998)
 * Zero (Blue Note, 1998)
 * New Directions (Blue Note 2000) The first recording where Moran, Mateen and Waits play together.
 * Symbols of Light (A Solution) (Blue Note, 2001)
 * Inner Circle (Blue Note, 2002)
 * Parallax (Clean Feed, 2013)
 * Crossing the Field (Koch, 2008)
 * Dual Orbit (TCB The Montreux Jazz Label, 2003)
 * III (Criss Cross, 2010)
 * Hearsay (Fresh Sound New Talent, 2002)
 * Pentatonic Wars And Love Songs (Telarc, 2009)
 * Refraction + Breakin' Glass (Intakt, 2013)
 * Loverly (Blue Note, 2008)

Film soundtrack

 * Two Three Time (2002) best original score, First Run Film Festival
 * Five Deep Breaths (2003)
 * All We Know of Heaven (2004) best original score, First Run Film Festival
 * Stutter (2007)
 * RFK in the Land of Apartheid (2009)