{"id":3557,"date":"2014-04-23T16:56:54","date_gmt":"2014-04-23T16:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=3557"},"modified":"2014-04-24T18:53:44","modified_gmt":"2014-04-24T18:53:44","slug":"genius-jason-moran-aint-gettin-a-big-head-hes-updating-fats-waller-for-shows-in-milwaukee-and-san-francisco-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=3557","title":{"rendered":"“Genius” Jason Moran ain’t gettin’ a big head. He’s updating Fats Waller for shows in Milwaukee and San Francisco…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"jazz31dancers\"<\/p>\n

Jason Moran and the Fats Waller Dance Party<\/strong>, South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center, 901 15th Ave., South Milwaukee \u00a0414-766-5049,\u00a07:30 p.m. April 26<\/strong>.<\/em>\u00a0$45-$20 adults, $39-$18 Seniors (60+), $20-$12 students<\/em><\/p>\n

So, who is Jason Moran, really? Well, seems he took his\u00a0MacArthur \u201cgenius\u201d Fellowship and began\u00a0messin’ with folks, in his latest musical project.\u00a0\u00a0For part of the show, he transforms into the Harlem Renaissance\u00a0pianist-singer-songwriter\u00a0Fats Waller, wearing a giant caricature head.<\/p>\n

If you go, and shout out something about his head getting too big, he’ll be asking for it, with that get-up. But he might just grin and say “Yo’ feets’ too big!” as Fats would have, in one of his most famous songs.<\/p>\n

There’s actually a modest yet purposeful tone to his reflections on the touring project, which reportedly supports an upcoming CD of the show\u2019s take on Waller. “It’s not really jazz, per se,” Moran said of the music, in an NPR interview with Janaya Williams. “It’s dance music. It’s club dance music. If you go to a club in the Village or Tribeca\u00a0(in New York) or somewhere, this might be what you hear in the club pumping over a sound system. So it’s not jazz.”<\/p>\n

Moran points out that Waller was a regular in clubs and speakeasies back in his day, and that some of his\u00a0lyrics<\/a>\u00a0fit right in with today’s club music. “Fats Waller has his really crazy things that he says in his lyrics, too, about thugs being in the crowd, you know, ‘Put that gun away’; he says stuff like that,” Moran says. “It’s almost like those clubs that he was in were as roguish as some of the clubs today.”\u00a01<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"fats<\/p>\n

Courtesy www.etsy.com<\/em><\/p>\n

That sounds like Moran, who’s also The Kennedy Center director and advisor for jazz, and will host a big multi-artist event at the Washington venue from May 4-11.\u00a0*<\/strong>\u00a0He’s also among the first jazz musicians to incorporate hip-hop into their music, notably on his excellent 2005 Blue Note album\u00a0Same Mother,\u00a0<\/em>which thematically contemplated “Gangsterism on the rise.”<\/p>\n

He’s also worked in\u00a0multi-arts contexts, and is a collaborator.\u00a0The giant papier-mache Waller head was designed for the show by Haitian artist\u00a0Didier Civil. Moran conceived and first produced the Waller show\u00a0in Harlem\u00a0in collaboration with noted genre-bending bassist\/singer\u00a0Meshell Ndegeocello<\/a>, who unfortunately will not be part of the South Milwaukee performance. There will be trained local dancers onstage for the show, though not those depicted in top photo, courtesy chicagotribune.com. Singer Lisa E. Harris will handle the vocals here, accompanied by Moran and his band.<\/p>\n

Milwaukee-area trumpeter Jamie Breiwick will open the show with a group of Milwaukee and Chicago musicians playing all original material.\u00a02<\/strong><\/p>\n

But the party’s designed to get people up off their feet, so bring your shoes for dancing in the aisles.\u00a0In a 2011 NPR interview Moran spoke of the germination of the project to arrange Waller’s\u00a0music for a dance party. It was “just to kind of put it back in the mind that Waller is dance music as much as it is concert music,” Moran says. “For me, it’s the recontextualization; what is the functionality of the music anymore? In music, where does [the emotion] lie? Are we, as humans, gaining any insight on how to talk about ourselves and how something as abstract as a Charlie Parker record gets us into a dialogue about our emotions and our thoughts? “Sometimes we lose sight that the music has a wider context,” Moran says. “So I want to continue those dialogues. Those are the things I want to foster.”<\/p>\n

\"Moran\"<\/p>\n

Jason Moran. Courtesy blogs.ottowacitizen.com<\/em><\/p>\n

One senses the earnestly\u00a0penetrating thought behind this interesting career turn, which skeptics might presume as little more than commercially motivated. Moran is one of the most impressive, ingenious and culturally-attuned musicians in jazz today, qualities which have earned him widespread acclaim including a MacArthur \u201cgenius\u201d Fellowship. The pianist-composer’s jazz influences include Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington and Andrew Hill, and now clearly, Waller.<\/p>\n

Moran\u2019s last two CDs,\u00a0TEN<\/em>\u00a0and the soulful duo album\u00a0Hagar\u2019s Daughter<\/em>\u00a0with saxophonist-flutist\u00a0Charles Lloyd, were among the best jazz recordings of their respective years. Moran’s current show evokes the great\u00a0stride pianist-entertainer in his prime era, the 1920s and early ’30s. And yet, this show is Waller updated with \u201crhythms coming out of 1960s-and-beyond dance music: Motown, house, hip-hop,\u201d according to\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0jazz critic Ben Ratliff.<\/p>\n

The Harlem Renaissance allowed urbane\u00a0African American arts to flourish, and nobody did it with more flair, wit and virtuosity than Fats Waller. So party-goers might find themselves stepping into an easy speakin’ and jivin’ past, but find it all striding and hip-hopping to the present.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a teaser video for the show:\u00a0https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-aEnjom1R84<\/a><\/p>\n

* Moran’s Waller Dance Party is also scheduled for 7:30 p.m. May 3, at Miner Auditorium in the SF JAZZ Center in San Francisco, with Nedegeocello.\u00a0https:\/\/www.sfjazz.org\/events\/season1\/fats-waller-dance-party<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

__________________<\/p>\n

1\u00a0http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2011\/05\/13\/136274480\/jason-moran-takes-fats-waller-back-to-the-club<\/a><\/p>\n

2 In South Milwaukee, besides Moran on piano and Harris on vocal, Moran’s band includes\u00a0Leron Thomas on trumpet, Tarus Mateen on bass and Charles Haynes on drums.<\/p>\n

Trumpeter Jamie Breiwick’s show-opening group will include Neil Davis on guitar, Dustin Laurenzi on tenor saxophone, Isaiah Joshua on Fender Rhodes electric piano,\u00a0Mike Harmon on bass and Devin Drobka on drums.<\/p>\n

\u00a03\u00a0http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2012\/04\/30\/151700270\/on-jazz-day-jason-moran-makes-the-case-for-relevance<\/a><\/div>\n

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Jason Moran and the Fats Waller Dance Party, South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center, 901 15th Ave., South Milwaukee \u00a0414-766-5049,\u00a07:30 p.m. April 26.\u00a0$45-$20 adults, $39-$18 Seniors (60+), $20-$12 students So, who is Jason Moran, really? Well, seems he took his\u00a0MacArthur \u201cgenius\u201d … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-www-kevernacular-com"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hJWE-Vn","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3557"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3566,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3557\/revisions\/3566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}