I love what Jason Moran has to say on promoting the American imagination through listening to jazz or watching the choreography of a dance. Moran won a MacArthur Foundation grant last year and was recently made an artistic advisor to the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. I met Jason four years ago at the Ucross Foundation artists' retreat in Ucross, Wyoming. Jason and his wife were expecting twins at the time and he was at Ucross to write two musical compositions that he had been commissioned to do. I remember the night he played different pieces for us in his log cabin studio and talked about music in a way that allowed me to understand sampling and American ragtime in the same breath. Listen to what he has to say here and know that he is just as wonderful as he appears. We all fell a little in love with Jason that summer, especially because it was so clear how much he loved his wife --- and making music.
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