The adventurous pianist, composer, and bandleader
Jason Moran added guitarist
Marvin Sewell to his band on 2005's
Same Mother.
Sewell is back and melding further with his own funky
blues-based playing on
Artist in Residence, which is a far-reaching
jazz record combining elements of
post-bop,
New Orleans jazz,
funk,
blues and even post-20th century
classical music to
Moran's array of shades and colors to play with. The repetitive sampled
spoken word loop by
Adrian Piper which acts as the ground for both the opener
"Break Down" and
"Artists Ought To Be Writing" is a bit h jarring when the band lights up under her. As she chants "Break down the barriers/Break down, misunderstanding/Break down, the artworld/Break down, the artist/Break down, the general public . .," the band uses it (looped continually through the piece, even in the solos) to ground everything in a circular rhythmic principle. Just as unsettling is
Alicia Hall Moran's soprano vocal in near
Webern-like lieder as the introduction to
"Milestone" atop
Moran's lilting piano before the band kicks it in prosaically at the one-minute mark. She frames her wordless vocal just as
Moran's left hand begins to spin out a melodic figure for everyone else to play around, though the entire piece sounds like an intro. Bassist
Tarus Mateen and drummer
Nasheet Waits earn their keep trying to ground this piece as it spirals to near and far Eastern shores. But it gets so much stranger as the improvised bass intro to
"Refraction 2" begins to introduce the players almost sideways, and where melody and harmony appear almost as if by accident. Yet it's all motion, building, falling, spilling, and being contained within a harmonic grid that is nearly wide open. The breakdown theme restates itself only to become more fleshed-out as narrative essay in
"Artists Ought to Be Writing," but the solo piano that follows is so speculative it never really takes off. The long-ish improvised intro that finally gels as
"Rain" is the album's most exciting tune. From its cryptic, elliptical movement into a full-fledged angular yet funky
post-bop tune, it is breaking apart by its end nearly 12 minutes later. People may initially have a hard time with
Artist in Residence. But it moves so freely and yet so purposely that it draws the listener into its unique soundworld slowly but deliberately, and offers plenty for the effort. ~ Thom Jurek