The jazz pianist on how he uses collaboration to expand our ideas about music and how it will be preserved for posterity.
What do you do after the world declares you a genius? Take your twin sons to school, if you’re Jason Moran. In 2010, the jazz pianist and composer was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the financial award granted annually to innovatively creative artists that is commonly called the “Genius Grant.” And while it opened doors and gave Moran more financial freedom, life for the Harlem-based musician went on as normal. Fortunately, normal for Moran is about as eclectically off-center as normal could be. How else to explain the catalog of an artist who has stretched far beyond the piano to create collaborations that challenge and transform the relationship between music, the other arts, and the audience with a list that includes visual artists Kara Walker and Glenn Ligon, opera singer and theater star (and his wife) Alicia Hall Moran, National Book Award honoree Asali Solomon and filmmaker Ava DuVernay, whose upcoming Selma will be scored by him?
