In the forty-eight years that Playboy has run an annual music poll, can you believe that only this year did it begin including a best jazz artist? That seems like a big oversight, considering that jazz makes an excellent backdrop for a little boot-knocking (as Playboy itself put it, the genre “holds a special spot in the Playboy lifestyle”). Naming Jason Moran to its top spot is a fine way to set things right. His restlessly innovative piano compositions combine technical virtuosity and a by-heart understanding of the jazz canon with motifs borrowed from hip-hop, funk, and electronic music. This month at Walker Art Center, Moran and his Bandwagon trio debut Milestone, a theatrical jazz suite inspired by art from the museum: works from Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Motherwell, Alice Neel, Louise Nevelson, and Adrian Piper. In particular, Piper’s photo-based The Mythic Being: I/You (Her) informs Moran’s composition, pushing his eclectic sound to new levels of experimentation. “There’s a lot of audio introduced in my music. The tape plays as another member of the band,” he says. “But it all works. We want people to take their seat belts off and trust that we’re gonna drive them to a safe place.” As for our little game, what if that place, for Moran, just happened to be a deserted island? As long as he could pack an extra-big pile of music–and fashion a generator from a coconut–it sounds like he’d do just fine.
1. I’d have to bring my piano–the upright that I began on. My parents bought it when I was seven. My brother and I came home one day and there was this shiny new black Kawai piano with a red bow on it.
2. Some pots–for cooking.
3. A stereo, with speakers and amplifier.
4. Music. Any Bach box set would last me til I died. That’s the root of a lot of music. I really don’t know Bach that well, so I think I could spend the rest of my life jumping in there. As far as jazz goes, I’ve listened to Thelonius Monk for so long that I can hear him playing in my head, so I don’t know that I’d bring his records. There’s this really obscure guy, Oscar Denard–I really don’t know how he’s doing what he’s does on piano. He has a genius way of combining traditional jazz piano chordal playing with phrases that are out of the ordinary. It gives you a great feeling of comfort and discomfort at the same time. I could get that sound into my brain for a few years. For hip-hop, I’d bring De La Soul, or something so lyrically potent that I could listen to it repeatedly, like Eric B Rakim’s Paid in Full. Or Public Enemy. Slum Village has beats and production that are just as rich as Count Basie’s music. In fact, I’d also get a box of just the beats or production by the producer J.D. from Detroit. That would give me someone to play with.
5. I don’t know anything about this, but Adrian Piper is heavy, heavy, heavy into yoga. She’s the artist that I’ve based a lot of this work on for the Walker. If I could get a lesson before I left, and a couple of books, then my mind could get buff, and my body.
Jason Moran and Bandwagon appear at Walker Art Center May 20 and 21 (www.walkerart.org; 612-375-7600).
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