Monk: A Tribute

Jason Moran is a thinking man’s pianist. His thoughts weave through each melody and motif, alternately playful and fiery, teasing the essence from whatever idea he happens to be exploring. The idea he has been playing with most recently is a fascinating replication of Thelonious Monk’s seminal 1959 Town Hall concert, which Moran and his eight-piece ensemble will perform at the Walker Art Center on May 9.

When performing “In My Mind: Monk at Town Hall 1959,” Moran and his ensemble meld their interpretation of Monk’s tunes with audio from the original performance, along with a multimedia mélange of photos, videos, and samples of the legendary jazz pianist’s voice. Moran is already accomplished at this type of project: He performed the critically acclaimed “Milestone” in 2005, a piece commissioned by the Walker Art Center that combined theater and visual art in an attempt to break down the barriers between audiences and jazz—and art in general.

Moran’s Town Hall reinterpretation presents a compelling juxtaposition of Monk’s world, now a half-century gone, against Moran’s modern age, revealing the undercurrent of tensions (What is jazz?) and possibilities (What can jazz be?) that connect the two worlds and two pianists.

Moran, like Monk, is considered one of the most adventurous and challenging jazz pianists of his time. Moran has his own style, but the similarities between Moran now and Monk at the time of the Town Hall performance —young and iconoclastic, masters of their instrument, fighting to redefine the conventions of their medium—are remarkable. Moran’s work dances so deftly between the worlds inhabited by the two pianists that it becomes difficult to draw the line separating them—if there even is one.

May 9. Walker Art Center, McGuire Theater, 1750 Hennepin Ave., Mpls., 612-375-7600