Episode 24 | Jason Moran on James Reese Europe, The Great Migration and Living in Harlem

Left off Black host Mark Anthony Neal is joined in the studio by musician Jason Moran.

Jason Moran is one of modern music’s most vital forces. Through a series of ambitious projects meant to bring jazz to a wider audience — such as the 2007 Duke Performances commission In My Mind, which reimagined Thelonious Monk’s 1959 Town Hall performance —  Moran has become one of the most sought-after pianists and bandleaders in jazz today. With frequent daring nods to funk, hip-hop, and contemporary composition, Moran has expanded jazz’s stylistic reach and given it new vitality. Now a label head and the artistic director for jazz at the Kennedy Center, Moran is the form’s ‘greatest young conceptualist,’ as Jazz Times exclaimed.”