Jason Moran. Photograph by Clay Patrick McBride, courtesy of Monterey Jazz Festival.
The Monterey Jazz Festival’s annual commission for new original work often yields something unexpected and memorable. But perhaps never has there been a festival commision as unusual as “Feedback,” the 20-minute piece premiered by pianist Jason Moran at the start of Sunday night’s Arena program.
Moran often uses recorded sources, such as voices or other songs, as a basis for live improvisation. In “Feedback” he went one step further, taking snippets of amplifier feedback from Jimi Hendrix’s legendary 1967 performance on the same Arena stage (at the famed Monterey Pop Festival), and building an entire world upon it.
“I won’t be offended if you cover your ears or if you leave,” Moran said, almost apologetically, before the performance. But while the sound did grow piercingly loud at times, the atmosphere in the piece’s first half was primarily one of calm remembrance.
Siren-like tones of feedback became an ambient loop under Moran’s piano (briefly played with a beer bottle sliding along the inner strings) and tumbling, grumbling sounds from bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits — their combined efforts like a building collapsing in slow motion. Moran added fresh feedback of his own, moving a microphone in and out, up and down around a tower of speakers at the edge of the stage.
Later in the piece, the feedback receded under a floating, breathing excursion from the trio, which soon grew into a quickening funk pulse. Moran switched to Fender Rhodes keyboard against Waits’ techno-style beat and Mateen’s breakneck bassline, building to a brilliant starburst of energy.
An audience participation section at the end caught everyone by surprise. One half of the Arena was assigned the task of singing one droning note, while the other half swooped up and down above them. Many were befuddled, but that long whooping noise can still be heard coming from people walking the festival midway as I type this review, well after the performance has ended.
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- Monterey 2009: Scott Amendola Trio
- Monterey 2009: John Patitucci Trio
- Monterey 2009: Latin Side All Stars
- Monterey 2009: John Scofield & Piety Street
- Monterey 2009: Ruthie Foster
- Monterey 2009: Erskine/Pasqua Trio
- Monterey 2009: Ambrose Akinmusire Quintet
- Monterey 2009: Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra
- Monterey 2009: Terrence Brewer Trio
- Monterey 2009: Alfredo Rodriguez Trio
- Monterey 2009: Buffalo Collision
- Monterey 2009: Jason Moran - "Feedback"
- Monterey 2009: Parting Thoughts
Wish I could have been there.
I was there. I couldn’t help but feel cheated that Moran associated his piece with Jimi Hendrix.
I took this more as a matter of inspiration than association, but it’s true that there wasn’t much Hendrix involved. The recorded feedback could have come from anywhere, but I still found it an interesting concept — a distant echo coming from the same physical space but a remote time — and I enjoyed what Moran did with it.
I wasn’t impressed at all, musique concrete is an old idea, the composition dod nothing new and certainly did no justice to Jimi, the stage or MJF, pushing no limits and exploring nothing new… I found the whole thing to be a rather futile exercise in pompousness and pretentiousness. But, hey, not everything has to be good.
People…this is jazz…free your mind.
I’m sure people called Miles & Ornette pretentious in their day.
It’s the old school thinking, that jazz has to sound and look a certain way, that keeps it in the dark.
The show, and level of playing was amazing. Creative. Outstanding. Especially his 9:00, non-arena show…over the top.
Interesting feedback on Moran’s commissioned piece, “Feedback.”
Three comments:
1. Jazz is and has always been, among many attempts to characterize it, an EXPERIMENT. That is why it is so unique and often a spontaneous experience for both the artist and the audience.
2. Louis Armstrong said it best when asked about what is good Jazz. His response went something like “If you like it, it’s good. If you don’t like it,…” Simple.
3. Jason Moran understood his piece would not resonate with everyone in the audience. He did it anyway. I feel that most Jazz audiences seek the unpredictable and a sound that challenges us.
I missed the Arena piece by Moran’s group, but from the comments sounds that the 9pm at the “night club” was similar.
the music they played bordered on unbearable during the dynamic crescendos. at these times, i could only feel the intensity. the bass, or piano lines were not discernible.
on every song the trio redeemed itself when they would bring it down and go into usually unexpected melodic, low tempo beauty.
all along I was thinking of Miroslav Vitous’s “Universal Syncopations II”. that whole album is sampled and MV plays over prerecorded orchestral and choir music
It was arty, pretentious crap. Arty and pretentious can be okay, if it’s not crap.
I sat incredulously through Moran’s travesty against music, and as a 49 year veteran of MJF, I cannot recall a less significant contribution to the jazz idiom. I endorse and support the avant garde, delight in Ornette Coleman, Don Byron, and the like, but after Moran’s catastrophe, I’d like to remind him that there’s a reason artists don’t drag microphones behind drumsticks attempting to “wound” cymbals. or use beer bottles instead of fingers on pianos: IT”S NOT MUSIC!!!
Loved the “Feedback” piece by J. Moran. Fresh, young, keeping jazz alive w/new ideas and risks yet a respect for tradition and those before him of whom to learn, regardless of genre. As I’m paraphrasing what a terrific jazz guitarist friend of mine wisely told me: “if the musician is good, he’s good, doesn’t matter what type of music he’s playin’.”