Jason Moran
1975–

Jason Moran: There's a centering moment which one might say is a meditative moment that begins each day. So this entails or kind of recalls spirituals, negro spirituals, a ring shout, which is something from the slave tradition in which slaves would gather in the woods and sing loose spirituals while walking around in a counter‑clockwise circle. Usually kind of arriving at a frenzy point out of repetition and using a mantra and sound and movement. It starts there, with music and spirituality.

Narrator: From there, many things may happen. Jason Moran and the Bandwagon, Moran’s regular group, will perform with Joan Jonas—an artist both Morans have worked with extensively. There will be a variety of performance events, which will take place in the main performance space that the Morans are creating. Meanwhile, there will be a smaller performance space by the window, arranged for just one performer and one audience member.

Jason Moran: As a performer, when you stand on a stage or wherever you do your performances, you're not really sure of who you're affecting. You know it might be the person that's the farthest away that's gathering the most and the person in the front is actually asleep. But this will be our first time looking at a way to really connect with that one person that's sitting in front of us. And it's not only us, it's writers who come in. It's poets who come in and speak from that spot. In that way there's a direct relationship with the artist and audience, which are both one and the same. They need each other, you know.

Jason Moran: My wife Alicia Hall Moran and I, we met at music school, at Manhattan School of Music. She's from the classical tradition and I'm from the jazz tradition. But both really still dealing with the African American perspective within those respective traditions.

Alicia Hall Moran: Something I always like to think about is a friend of mine who travels the world. She's really wonderful and courageous and generous, does volunteer work all around the world. I once said to her, "How can you go out into these places and not understand what you're going to get even as far as food and water source?" And she said, "Well, how can you live so near your parents?"

I think that's it in a nutshell for me. It's like, yeah, I'm going to figure these people out who raised me. I'm going to be in their face. Because that's where all my good stuff is, and I want it, and I'm going to have to excavate for it.

So that's kind of been the process I've done is look around me, do studies on the people that I know, who, luckily for me, many are brilliant. So that's a long lifelong journey, and that's what I think the Art Song project Jason and I are going to present is about.

We have work on our walls. We go to museums. We get to meet artists. Some are our friends. We really probably only have music as a way to honestly answer the effect that that's had on our life. So we felt, with the invitation of the Whitney, being a perfect moment to really dig in and work hard for the reward of a good performance, this was the time to come real face-to-face with that and show how we've been inspired.

Narrator: In their five-day residency in the Whitney, Jason Moran and Alicia Hall Moran will perform, along with a number of collaborators. You’ll also see videos from past collaborations. To hear about some of the events, please tap the screen.