Ten
- Jason Moran
- Blue Note
Some feel that young jazz musicians need to respect tradition; others believe they should embrace the new. Jason Moran figures, why not do both? On his eighth album, Ten, he and his trio - bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits - play everything from Thelonious Monk's Crepuscule with Nellie to originals like Gangsterism Over Ten Years with the same mix of audacity and imagination. They sometimes add washes of electronics on tracks like Feedback Pt. 2, and there's little in the way of straight time keeping. But even when the tunes seem decidedly outside, as with Blue Blocks, the music is never too far removed from blues basics.