Jason Moran
Sept 20, 2019–Jan 5, 2020
Collaborations
4
Collaboration has been central to Moran’s experiments, and among the many artists with whom he has collaborated include The Bandwagon (Tarus Mateen and Nasheet Waits), Stan Douglas, Lizzie Fitch, Theaster Gates, Joan Jonas, Glenn Ligon, Julie Mehretu, Ashland Mines (Total Freedom), Alicia Hall Moran, Adam Pendleton, Adrian Piper, Lorna Simpson, Ryan Trecartin, Kara Walker, and Carrie Mae Weems.
Jason Moran and The Bandwagon (Tarus Mateen and Nasheet Waits) with Lizzie Fitch, Ashland Mines (Total Freedom), and Ryan Trecartin
Excerpt from The Last Jazz Fest, 2018
Jason Moran and The Bandwagon (Tarus Mateen and Nasheet Waits) with Lizzie Fitch, Ashland Mines (Total Freedom), and Ryan Trecartin, performance still of The Last Jazz Fest, 2018. Commissioned by the Walker Art Center, and the Wexner Center for the Arts at the Ohio State University. Photograph by Bobby Rogers for Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
In The Last Jazz Fest—commissioned for the opening of Jason Moran at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis—Moran and his invited collaborators explored the various uses and meanings of jazz: as freedom music, as a model of democracy, and as a prop. Moran and The Bandwagon, his long-standing trio, played music spanning different movements and eras, encompassing the breadth of a jazz festival while avoiding the chronological legibility that often characterizes such events. A mix by Ashland Mines (Total Freedom) pulled both archival and contemporary samples to create an overlay that distorted the sound of the band. The disorienting projections of Lizzie Fitch and Ryan Trecartin culminated with the filmed demolition of a stage from their recent project Site Visit, evoking the destruction of the decontextualized stage of the jazz festival.