JASON MORAN OCTET
A World Premiere
IN MY MIND: MONK AT TOWN HALL, 1959
Saturday, 10/27/07, 8 pm
Page Auditorium
$19 • $15 • $11 • $5* (* Speical offer: for all students)
In this world-premiere performance, a prodigy pianist, gifted composer, and heir to the Monk tradition debuts IN MY MIND, a full-length original piece based on Monk's legendary 1959 Town Hall concert, W. Eugene Smith’s documentary work, and Moran’s 2007 pilgrimage to Monk’s ancestral home in North Carolina. The piece incorporates live performance by an eight-piece ensemble, video projections, and recorded samples of Monk rehearsing his band for the Town Hall performance.
Commissioned especially by Duke Performances and four other major institutions, IN MY MIND world-premieres in Durham, then travels to the Washington (D.C.) Performing Arts Society, Chicago’s Symphony Hall, and SFJAZZ. The unveiling of Moran’s major new work at Duke, just an hour from Monk’s birthplace, promises to be a singular event in jazz.
Moran is the visiting artist for Following Monk and a force in modern jazz piano. Just 31 years old, Moran has a nimble, unapologetically eclectic piano style that’s already won him awards, critical appreciation, and a reputation as a young genius. It has also earned him comparisons to Monk, whom Moran cites as the reason he started piano in the first place.
Moran on Monk:
“The hard part is actually trying to unlearn what learned me,” Moran says. “I want to reconnect with Monk, not with people talking about his ‘quirky rhythms’ or ‘off-centered humor.’ I want to get past all that and say this was a real human being who shaped the world of jazz and the world of music, partially because of what he did at the instrument but mostly because of the way he thought.”
Audio Interview: Jason Moran and Sam Stephenson, Director of the Center
for Documentary Studies Jazz Loft Project, discuss IN
MY MIND:
Jason Moran on the web:
www.myspace.com/jasonmoranonbluenote
Funded, in part, by a Visiting Artist Grant from the Council for the Arts; Office of the Provost, Duke University; and the Reva and David Logan Foundation of Chicago.
IN MY MIND was commissioned by Duke University and the Center for Documentary Studies, Jazz at Symphony Center/Chicago, SFJAZZ, and the Washington Performing Arts Society.
IN MY MIND uses archival materials courtesy of the W. Eugene Smith Archive at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, the Heirs of W. Eugene Smith, and the Jazz Loft Project at The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.