JASON MORAN & THE BANDWAGON

“He radiates such facility and generosity from behind that piano. With his eloquence flooding our ears, we were suddenly invited to listen for a private friction in his brain...We’ll never be able to hear those firing synapses, only the decisions that they create. That’s fine. That’s music. Instead of settling into the center of his expanding soundworld, Moran decides to keep moving. We can learn something about who he is by where he decides to go, how he decides to get there, and what he decides to do once he arrives

“Jason Moran was born in Houston in 1975. He is a jazz pianist, composer, and educator. He earned a degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Jaki Byard. He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2010 and is the artistic director for jazz at the Kennedy Center, Washington, DC. Moran’s work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions, including at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (2021) and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2019). He participated in the 56th Venice Biennale and the 2012 Whitney Biennial. Moran teaches at the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston. He lives in Harlem, New York.

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The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra began its life as the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra in 1966.The world-famous Village Vanguard jazz club in New York City booked the newly formed band for three Monday nights that February. Those performances were wildly successful and the engagement was extended indefinitely. The Village Vanguard’s owner, Max Gordon, told Mel Lewis, “We’ll keep it going until it tapers off.” Over half a century and more than 2700 Monday nights later, it still hasn’t. The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra stands apart from all other modern ensembles of its kind and is still as strong and vital as ever.

“Bassist extraordinaire, composer, arranger, educator, curator and administrator, Christian McBride, has been one of the most important and most omnipresent figures in the jazz world for 20 years.

“The deep, dark-maple tone that Christian McBride elicits from an upright bass is one of jazz’s forthright pleasures, and so is the pleasure he seems to extract from it himself...He calls this band Inside Straight, applying the phrase as a badge of intent and maybe a deflective maneuver: He’ll brand this music as conventional before you ever have the chance. What that says about Mr. McBride is that he has his principles but sees the bigger picture.

“Changes come and go in Manhattan’s West Village neighborhood, but the basement club occupying 178 Seventh Avenue South since 1935 remains a stable and revered New York City landmark. It’s been tweaked for upkeep over the years, but never to the point where you wouldn’t recognize it.