Last December 1 the DC Jazz Festival presented Jason Moran in a solo piano performance at the Embassy of Switzerland before an enthusiastic, (packed) invited audience of festival supporters. Earlier that afternoon, as part of DCJF’s ongoing Meet The Artist series it was this writer’s pleasure to engage Jason in a very rewarding (free & open to the public) lunchtime interview before a rapt audience at the NYU/DC Abramson Family Auditorium. We discussed his growing up in Houston and how that city has developed so many productive musicians of his generation (e.g. Robert Glasper, Eric Harland, Helen Sung, Kendrick Scott and several others); his artistically (and otherwise obviously) nurturing home environment; his subsequent music studies with Jaki Byard; how he, drummer Nasheet Waits, and bassist Tarus Mateen came to establish his 18-year old trio the Bandwagon; the development of he and wife Alicia Hall Moran are going about establishing their Yes records label and a variety of other pertinent topics. View that Meet The Artist interview here: