Facing Left

Jason Moran | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 27, 2000)
• Original Release Date: June 27, 2000
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Blue Note Records
• ASIN: B00004TR16
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #135,267 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Along with such players as Greg Osby, Stefon Harris, and Mark Shim, Jason Moran is making jazz that reflects myriad influences, from the traditional bop guard to Icelandic techno artist Bjork to contemporary classical and beyond. But theirs is not some studied attempt at a new music, or a stab at solo stardom created by labels and producers. Facing Left, like the New Directions group and Harris's lauded Black Action Figure, is serious, evocative, gripping, and explorative jazz. With dense, involving support from drummer Nasheet Waits and bassist Tarus Mateen, Moran begins Facing Left with the delicately erotic maze of "Later." "Thief Without Loot" darts over funky grooves with both acoustic and Rhodes piano, kind of a twinkling tightrope walk. Bjork is a favorite among many young musicians, and here Moran covers her moonlight missive "Joga" with elegance and a touch of Thelonious Monk. In fact, Monk surfaces often here (try the rambunctious Duke Ellington track, "Wig Wise"), mostly in Moran's touch. Also present is the luminous grace of Keith Jarrett, the logic of Herbie Hancock, and the lush romanticism of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Using rhythm like a conjurer's wand, Moran employs weird, stumbling beats in "Yojimbo" and "Battle of the Cattle Acts," while "Murder of Don Fanucci" rides a staggering military march. --Ken Micallef

From Jazziz

Turns out clutching tradition so tightly has side effects. Who knew? The young improvisors were only doing what they were told when they studied and absorbed the hallowed language of previous generations. But that vocabulary followed them, like an opportunistic ghost, when they sat down to write the original material that would fill the jazz albums of the 1980s and '90s. Bit by bit, the stock chord sequences and flatted thirds eroded what once was a discrete art - composing for small jazz ensemble, as perfected by Thelonious Monk and Wayne Shorter - into a blank, rote act of repertory reshuffling. Tunes so glossily competant you listen for any flicker of dissonant uprising, a moment when the scholarship is thrown off kilter. The kind of happytalk that makes you desperate for a four-bar cry of flawed humanity. Somebody, anybody, who means it.

The absence of this individual character might be considered a "game over" signal. It is, at the very least, another reason to pay attention to Jason Moran, the 25-year-old pianist and composer who has been developing over the past few years in various Greg Osby ensembles. Moran is not the second coming of Monk, or a Shorterian romantic, or the author of melody lines that can be traced back through the lineage to Art Tatum. Rather, on this, his second album as a leader, he presents himself as a child of his time - part scavenger and part seer, fluent in the cut/paste/splice devices of hiphop production and yet at home with the trippier realms of Bartok, Stravinsky and Bjork. Oh, yeah: He swings mightily, too.

And unlike many of his peers, whose compositional endeavors amount to endless rehabbings of 32-bar post-blues platitudes, young Moran is blessed with the courage of his own convictions. His tunes are odd in form and right-angled in structure - the kind of hinky music computer geeks would write if they could stop crunching code. They're informed by the more adventurous pianist/composers - Andrew Hill chief among them - and infused with sights and smells from faraway lands. In his lines, both written and improvised, you can hear the sprockety grinding of Machine-Age gears as well as the efficient hum of the silicon chip. One piece, "Wig Wise," is an old-fashioned march to the scaffold. Another, "Yojimbo," is built on a harrumphing ostinato figure and block chords as big as houses. There are drones, big powerful ones, that echo those devotional incantations of Love Supreme days. There are hymns, including Bjork's lovely "Joga," that amble along with dirge-like grace, as though following a funeral procession. Each of the pieces is less notable for its (often underdeveloped) melody than its overall feel: If Moran were a painter, he would already be past the fruit bowls and into some deep, stormy Impressionism.

What makes these settings so vivid is the unabashed joy with which Moran's musical compatriots - bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits - dig into them. Happy to tackle something other than stock 4/4 swing, this outfit exaggerates the offbeat accents and blows up the grandiose Bartokian assymetries, all the while paying attention to the fleeting emotional nuances embedded in the text. Moran's tunes are unfinished in the best possible way - they're platforms for further inquiry, mandates for exploration that are riddled with hanging questions. The trio understands this, and its lusty enthusiasm for such conceptual work is evident in the big cresting peaks and, even more deliciously, the subtle touches. Moran will start with a common device - say, the pulse-quickening accelerando that ends "Another One" - and then throw in all kinds of odd little wrenches. On that tune, as the pace quickens, he makes sure that he's not perfectly aligned with his rhythm-mates; the tension between tempos gives the piece its richness.

On the staccato "Thief Without Loot," Moran switches between placid electric and more crisply articulated acoustic. The rhythm team doesn't reinforce the melody's accents as much as it offers intricate counterpoint. It sounds, at times, as though Moran choreographed these rhythmic jabs; more likely, it's just that the dynamic of this trio reinforces evey bit of shading Moran sketches. Such ad-libbed accompaniment is improvisation of the highest order. Mateen and Waits are far enough inside the compositions to extend Moran's conceptual aims. They're listening intently enough to transform a capricious, offhand remark into a rallying point. And they're doing this because the writing, already full of blood and guts and life, demands it.

--- Tom Moon, JAZZIZ Magazine Copyright © 2000, Milor Entertainment, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Jason Moran, pushing the limits of jazz, June 27, 2000

By 

teresa ruggles (olathe, KS United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Facing Left (Audio CD)

i was amazed upon hearing Soundtrack to Human Motion, Jason Moran's first recording as a leader. It showed his individualistic style, his great composition skills and his all around wonderful musicianship. and Facing Left is more of the same. although only a trio album, it has power. Moran on piano, Fender Rhodes, and Hammond b3, Tarus Mateen on bass, and Nasheet Waits on drums create amazing textures and colors on these six Moran pieces and seven interpratations. The two Ellington pieces smoke. Moran mixes bits of the avant garde with classic jazz. he realizes that his elders in jazz are very important. but he also realizes that he can not tread in their foot steps. he quickly runs past them. the album is great, buy it and support a true artist pushing the limits of jazz.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars an ecclectic treasure, July 29, 2000

By 

p dizzle "p dizzle" (augusta, georgia, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Facing Left (Audio CD)

with "facing left," mr. moran gives us the most exciting piano trio album of the year. variety is the theme here, as mr. moran explores many of the different artists that have shaped his own style, which is becoming powerful in its own right. the range here is from ellington swing ('later') to jarrett exploration ('joga'-- interesting because it is a bjork tune)to tastes of the avant garde ('three of the same...'). mr. moran is a melodic player who creates colorful soundscapes playing with rhythm and harmony in much the same way a poet plays with words. the trio setting allows us to really get to hear and appreciate mr. moran's talent. his support in tarus mateen on bass and nasheet watts on drums is superb. i hope this trio stays together for a long time. if you are interested in jazz that thinks and swings at the same time, this album is worth every penny.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Strong jazz, somewhere between old and new school, January 5, 2001

By 

Scott Woods (Columbus, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Facing Left (Audio CD)

If you're looking for smooth jazz, you are COMPLETELY in the wrong place. Even when this guy is playing ballads, he's rough, and I dig it. I'm a big fan of young, contemporary-minded cats who write their own stuff; who play traditional jazz through their own eyes, and aren't trying to simply out-Coltrane John Coltrane. Alongside Stefon Harris, Greg Osby and others of their ilk, Moran is giving you the jazz that Thelonius Monk would have if he had played Playstation, watched cartoons and ate gyros on a Saturday night with his boys while watching a basketball game.

Not that there isn't some hardcore history note-taking taking place here: there's MAD Herbie Hancock (circa 1970) influence here, and a wallopingly profound realization of a Bjork song(!). Those guys at Blue Note are doing something special over there with Moran, Osby and Stefon Harris (and their supergroup offering, "New Directions"), and we'd do well to support it. It's either that or watch them fade off into obscurity for genuinely pushing a much-needing-to-be-moved envelope. It's not for the faint of heart; some of the funk is hard to keep up with if you aren't into hardcore traditional jazz already. But if you dig Stefon Harris, Thelonious Monk, Herbie Hancock, Steve Coleman or Miles Davis fusion (70s) stuff, give it a whirl. It's pretty strong tonic. In fact, it's Medeski Marrtin Wood with an actual, obvious groove.