Moran's Commissioned Soundworld Opens Wide
Music that moves freely yet purposefully, drawing listeners into a unique soundworld slowly but deliberately.
Artist in Residence announces itself with restless energy and strange beauty. Jason Moran's piano initiates conversations with Tarus Mateen's bass, Marvin Sewell's guitar, Joan Jonas on percussion, and Nasheet Waits on membranophone — five voices working in and out of unison, sometimes locked tight, sometimes floating free. The textures shift constantly: post-bop abstraction one moment, New Orleans warmth the next, then something that sounds like it could veer toward funk or blues before the music slides somewhere else entirely. You're never quite settled, never quite sure what comes next.
Moran composed these pieces for three major institutions — the Walker Art Center, the Dia Art Foundation, and Jazz at Lincoln Center — which means they arrived with a specific charge: make something that works in a gallery, a concert hall, a formal context. The album honors that without sounding stiff. Sewell's guitar and Jonas's percussion often feel like improvised responses to Moran's ideas rather than predetermined parts; the rhythm section never locks into a groove so hard that it can't shift course. The balance between composition and spontaneity keeps the record alive.
AllMusic reviewer Thom Jurek heard the album combining post-bop, New Orleans jazz, funk, blues, and even post-twentieth-century classical elements into a cohesive statement. For listeners unfamiliar with Moran's earlier work, Artist in Residence might demand patience — it doesn't announce its rewards immediately. But those willing to sit with it find plenty of substance: genuine originality without affectation, and a pianist unafraid to let space and silence matter as much as notes.
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