Pianist Jason Moran, a 2011 MacArthur “Genius” grant winner and Downbeat’s 2011 “Jazz Artist of the Year,” is jazz’s wild card, a probing conceptualist who transforms everything he touches into a bracingly contemporary statement. This lively party devoted to the legendary pianist Fats Waller (1904-1943) includes an open dance floor and copious quantities of fun. Rather than interpreting Waller’s ebulliently swinging songbook directly, Moran and the renowned bassist and vocalist Meshell Ndegeocello break down melodies and riffs, with his band “buil[ding] on those fragments, in rhythms coming out of 1960s-and-beyond dance music: Motown, house, hip-hop.” (The New York Times)