The impressionistic approach of visual and musical artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Maurice Ravel inspire Moran's playing and writing style, on both his own compositions and his work with jazz contemporaries like Cassandra Wilson, Steve Coleman, Greg Osby, and Stefon Harris. Moran's debut album, Soundtrack to Human Motion, appeared in 1999; Facing Left followed a year later. In 2001 he released Black Stars, which featured his trio, also comprising bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits, joined by saxophone legend Sam Rivers. A year later he took a much different approach on Modernistic, offering an album of solo piano recordings. Since that time, Moran released the live album The Bandwagon in 2003 and Artist in Residence in 2006. Moran returned in 2010 with the trio album Ten. A pair of albums appeared in 2013, Hagar's Song, a collaboration with saxophonist Charles Lloyd, and Refraction - Breakin' Glass, with Trio 3. All Rise: A Joyful Elegy for Fats Waller, a collaboration in part with Meshell Ndegeocello, arrived in 2014. He was a featured soloist in the Boston Modern Orchestra Project's recording of Mason Bates: Mothership, issued in early 2016. That May, he received a Doris Duke Artist Award. ~ Heather Phares