Composer, pianist and Presidential Scholar Jason Moran spoke with audience members in anticipation of his concert, a tribute to an iconic figure in the evolution of African American music, ragtime pioneer and World War I hero, James Reese Europe.
Leading a jazz piano master class on Sept. 19, Presidential Scholar Jason Moran explained the background of his multidisciplinary concert program, James Reese Europe and the Harlem Hellfighters: The Absence of Ruin.
Monday, September 19
Tuesday, September 20
Wednesday, September 21
Thursday, September 22
Friday, September 23
September 19–23, 2022
Pianist and composer Jason Moran has established himself as a risk taker and trendsetter for new directions in jazz. Since 2000, Moran and the other members of his trio The Bandwagon have dazzled audiences at venues worldwide. Moran has also composed for Alonzo King LINES Ballet; conceived a jazz and skateboarding collaboration; written the film score for Selma; and paid homage to two legendary pianists in his Blue Note album All Rise: A Joyful Elegy for Fats Waller and his multimedia program In My Mind: Monk at Town Hall 1959. Moran is a faculty member at the New England Conservatory, the Kennedy Center’s artistic director for jazz and a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship (“Genius Grant”).
At Amherst, Moran will present James Reese Europe and the Harlem Hellfighters: The Absence of Ruin. Moran’s multidisciplinary program features his Bandwagon bandmates—bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits—plus a seven-piece horn section, contributions from artist/writer/filmmaker John Akomfrah and visual materials from acclaimed cinematographer Bradford Young. It’s Moran’s response to Orlando Patterson’s concept of the “absence of ruin”—a musical monument to a vanishing African American history.
About James Reese Europe
An iconic figure in the evolution of African American music, ragtime pioneer and World War I hero, James Reese Europe led a crack military ensemble called the Harlem Hellfighters. In addition to their achievements in combat, Europe and his Hellfighters popularized the new spirit of jazz in a war-torn French nation fascinated with Black culture. And that’s only the beginning of their story—their legacy has had an extraordinary impact on African American music over the past century of cultural and political change.