By David Okamoto, KERA 90.1 commentator
Dallas, TX –
[Track 10: "Gangsterism On The Set"]
Houston-born jazz pianist Jason Moran has always kept tradition at arm's length - wielding it as something to build upon rather than hide behind.
So when the 30-year-old graduate of Houston's High School for the Performing and Visual Arts unearths obscure Duke Ellington compositions like "Wig Wise," he's celebrating the innovation of his influences, not just their greatest hits. When he slides in works by Ravel or soundtrack themes from "The Godfather, Part Two" and Akira Kurosawa's "Yojimbo," he's acknowledging other instrumental art forms and their equally powerful essence. And when he revamps Afrika Bambaataa's early hip-hop classic "Planet Rock" for solo piano, he's proving that drawing inspiration from contemporary music goes beyond samples and loops.
Moran, a disciple of iconoclastic pianists Andrew Hill and Jaki Byard, clearly takes great pleasure in busting out from within: On his daring sixth album, "Same Mother," he explores the link between jazz and blues as vital vehicles for African-American expression - not as a history lesson but as a free-wheeling, passion-drenched twist on the blues tradition that evokes more than it mimics, erupts more than it moans. For the first time, his Texas roots, and his Southern soul, shine as brightly as his Manhattan School of Music training.
[Track 2: "Jump Up"]
Guest guitarist Marvin Sewell, best known for his work with Cassandra Wilson, provides the howling counterpoint to Moran's dynamic, percussive playing. He ignites a roadhouse fuse and also shadows the pianist and his trio as they veer into harmonic and rhythmic tangents - fueled by machine-gun arpeggios and elastic bass lines - that break the blues out of its 12-bar prison.
The approach works most effectively on an eight-minute rendition of Albert King's "I'll Play the Blues For You." Although the song's funky roots are actually in Memphis, two members of Moran's father's family played in King's touring band and their Houston visits left an indelible impression. Moran kicks off the song as he heard it hundreds of times as a teenager but seamlessly morphs it into a playful, bop-inflected jazz improvisation.
[Track 5: "I'll Play the Blues For You"]
But don't get the idea that Same Mother is all about the same concept of just interpreting the blues in a jazz setting. Moran also taps into the melancholy undertones of such unlikely works as Prokofiev's "The Field of the Dead," which finds Sewell's stinging slide guitar summoning the emotion of an entire orchestra.
[Track 7: "Field of the Dead"]
Same Mother could have easily come across as brash and irreverent. But in Jason Moran's cunning hands, the blues gets reshaped and redefined - and comes out sounding riveting and relevant.
[Track 4: "G Suit Salutation"]
David Okamoto is a senior producer at Yahoo Broadcast and a contributing editor to ICE Magazine.