Black and Tan Phonetasy

In the performance of Duke Ellington's music live, there occasionally comes along a musician in a league of their own: someone whose deep rooted love and understanding of Ellington's music allied to their own skills both takes the music in new directions and to new levels, allowing the listener to gain insights they have never experienced before.

Jason Moran is one of those musicians. The video above was taken on the phone of a member of the audience, Nelson George,  at Moran's recent performance at The Apollo Theatre, Harlem, Ellington In Focus (25 April, 2025).

Alone on stage at the piano, behind Jason Moran were projected images of Ellington by photographer Gordon Parks. For those lucky enough to be there, it must have been an exhilarating experience.

Moran takes Ellington and Miley's composition apart like a game of Jenga, brick by brick, assembling, re-assembling, editing and sequencing into some sort of fractal or nexus. I hear the cakewalking piano-style of 19th Century New York boulevards one moment, the emergence of stride the next, then some thunderous, pounding extemporisations which create the impression of a dystopian future yet to happen, as though the composition is being newly created there and then before our ears. Ellington has been and gone, is here now, is yet to happen. A sonic time vortex. Utterly incredible.