Point In Time
by Ken Dryden
One of the busiest and most dependable musicians of the '90s, pianist Fred Hersch delivers another strong performance with Point in Time, mixing standards, choice jazz classics, and his own creative originals. His trio with bassist Drew Gress and drummer Tom Rainey is featured on four tracks; highlights include his moving rendition of "The Peacocks" and a driving original, "Cat's Paws," dedicated to the late promising pianist Dave Catney who died a few months before these sessions. Tenor saxophonist Rich Perry is featured on the delicate arrangement of "Infant Eyes," while trumpeter Dave Douglas joins Hersch on the pianist's melancholy but insistent "Too Soon." The full quintet is featured on several songs, including the pianist's pulsating post bop title track as well as on "Evidence," which captures the playfulness of its composer, Thelonious Monk. Recommended.
Fred Hersch & Jay Clayton
Beautiful Love
by Dave Nathan
Jay Clayton has been a leader in applying avant-garde, creative modern techniques to the art of jazz vocal. She has been successful in this commendable objective ever since her first album as a solist in 1980, where a 25-year-old Jane Ira Bloom was a major partner. Although working with a play list of classic standards, except for Wayne Shorter's jazz standard "Footprints," Clayton has by no means set aside her modern jazz vocal leanings. Joined by Fred Hersch a pianist with like perspectives, they work in tandem to present this familiar music in an offbeat non-familiar way. This is not to say that lovely melody lines are lost among cacophonies of grunts, groans, and other extra terrestrial events. The lyrical lines are there, but the tempo, the phrasing, the emphasis has been rearranged so the light of these tunes is refracted through a prism rather than through a window of ordinary glass. Full fledged avant-garde comes, as one would expect, on Shorter's "Footprints," where Clayton engages in wordless vocalizing reminiscent of the vocal part in Hector Villa-Lobas "Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5," with Hersch doing a marvelous job replacing the cellos as the voice accompaniment. This is seven minutes of remarkable virtuosity. "Regular" standards, such as "Blame It on My Youth," are treated with respect as Clayton plays little games with the melody line and chordal structure and inserts wordless vocalizing here and there. "Beautiful Love" is introduced slowly by Clayton a cappella before moving into a medium lilting tempo. Not much here ever gets beyond that pace. This album is thoughtful and is for those who want to hear the full measure of a song, with nothing skipped, casually dismissed, or unknowingly overlooked. Highly recommended.
Fred Hersch
Evanessence: A Tribute To Bill Evans
By Alex Henderson
Initially released in Japan in 1990, Evanessence didn't come out in the U.S. until the Philadelphia-based Evidence Music reissued it in 1998. This excellent CD finds Hersch (who evolved into one of the finest acoustic pianists of the 1990s) paying tribute to the person he has been compared to more than anyone: Bill Evans. To be sure, Evans has had a major impact on Hersch's crystalline, elegant pianism. But Hersch (whose other main influences include Ahmad Jamal and Keith Jarrett) is far from a slavish imitator of Evans, and the fact that he's very much his own person comes through on both Evans' compositions (including "Turn Out the Stars," "We Will Meet Again" and "Remembering the Rain") and sensitive interpretations of "Alice in Wonderland" and "You Must Believe in Spring." Though Hersch's admiration for Evans (especially his 1970s work) is hard to miss, he comes across as someone who's adamant about being himself. The pianist's thoughtful accompaniment includes Toots Thielemans on harmonica, Gary Burton on vibes, Michael Formanek or Marc Johnson on bass and Jeff Hirshfield on drums. Highly recommended.
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