Bandwagon, the

Live recordings from Moran's piano trio. Treads the same ground as mainstream dinner jazz but with plenty of interesting twists, such as peppery, abstract flurries (2,5). Moran also displays his hip-hop influences, accentuated by some kind of "acoustic electric" bass with a fluid sound.

Moran's playing is flush with energy and new creativity, even when he's playing "normally," but for this album he's added a gimmick. Three of the tracks (4,6,9) have melodies based on patterns of speech -- that is, a sampled voice gets played, and Moran plays piano exactly in time with the spoken words. Clever idea, and impressive considering he does this *live* without losing lock-step synchronizing (obviously it was rehearsed beforehand, but it's still impressive.)

2- Fast, disjoint and crystalline
3- Slow, based on Brahms
4- Weirdly skipping line. Moran taped someone speaking Turkish and wrote music that overlaps the vocal inflections -- neat experiment.
5- Abstract intro into fast, sneaky, low-key swing
6- Gentle, sentimental piano w/Moran's parents' voices overdubbed
7- Fast and stormy
8- Slow, peaceful
9- Like #4, piano patterned after some Asian language
10- A cover of "Planet Rock," a mid/fast snap