1 Sem 2018 - Part Two

Fred Hersch Trio
Live In Europe



By Dan McClenaghan
Fred Hersch's 2009 recording, Whirl (Palmetto Records), was where pure magic first occurred in the pianist's extensive and consistently superb discography. That particular outing introduced his now long-standing trio with bassist John Hebert and drummer Eric McPherson. Alive At the Vanguard (2012), Floating (2014), and Sunday Night At The Vanguard (2016) by the group followed, all on Palmetto Records.
For those who lauded Hersch's solo outing, Open Book (Palmetto Records, 2017) as his finest, most incisive and finely-focused outing, the pianist offers up Live In Europe, featuring his Hebert/McPherson team, to garner votes for that "Hersch's Best" slot.
Performed at Flagey Studio 4, in Brussels's former National Institute for Radio Broadcasting, Hersch was initially unaware that the set—which he regarded as one of his best trio performances ever—had been recorded. Upon finding out that it had been—and upon hearing the tape and having his belief in its extraordinary quality confirmed—he decided to release the music.
Spinning through Hersch's previous outings with this nine years and running trio says that they bring the "A" game every time. On Live In Europe it's an "A+" game. The players are as flexibly synchronized and adept at presenting their three-way improvisational and emotional expressionism as they could be, on a set that begins with a jittery take on Thelonious Monk's "We See." The group follows with six Hersch originals, including tributes to British pianist John Taylor and a calypso-esque nod to saxophone legend Sonny Rollins, before slipping into the Herbie Hancock songbook with the achingly beautiful "Miyako," that gives way to an effervescent take on a second Shorter tune, "Black Nile." It's a set where Hersch sounds freer, more open to possibilities, employing the same exploratory approach he presented on the epic "Though The Forest" on his Open Book outing.
And the sound must be addressed. It doesn't get any better—a big plus, especially on piano trio outings. The piano is crisp, like a winter sunrise. Every nuance of McPherson's intricate and energetic drumming has crystal clarity, and Hebert's empathic and emphatic bass lines come through with a clean-cut lucidity.
The show wraps it up with a solo encore of "Blue Monk," a sober and contemplative return to Monk-land, a place to which Hersch often travels.
Track Listing:
Wee See; Snape Maltings; Scuttlers; Skipping; Bristol Fog; Newklypso; The Big Easy; Miyako; Black Nile; Blue Monk.
Personnel:
Fred Hersch: piano; John Hebert: bass; Eric McPherson: drums.

1 Sem 2018 - Part One

Fred Hersch
Open Book



By Dan McClenaghan
In the aftermath of his coma and very possible demise back in 2008, pianist Fred Herschblossomed from a status as a first rate jazz pianist into the rarified air of one of the handful of top practitioners of that art form. A series of post-illness albums, from Whirl(2010), to Alone At The Vanguard (2011) to Floating (2014), Solo (2015) and Sunday Night At the Vanguard (2016), all on Palmetto Records, are all solo and trio outings that reveal a heightened artistic clarity and unabashed vulnerability, alongside a deeper emotive approach, this in comparison to his uniformly excellent, but perhaps more cerebral output before his struggle with serious health problems.
Now we have Open Book, Hersch's eleventh solo piano outing.
Intimacy is a hallmark of Hersch's music, and "The Orb," the set's opener, taken from Hersch's autobiographical music/theater piece, My Coma Dreams, is the tenderest, loveliest of love songs, a look at a paramour through, with justification it seems, rose-colored glasses. "Whisper Not," Benny Golson's classic tune, takes things into a turn of the playful, via crisp, prancing piano notes singing over a serious and assertive left hand. Hersch visits an old friend, Antonio Carlo Jobim, with "Zingaro," a sublime reverie.
The centerpiece, "Through The Forest," is something unheard of on record by Hersch. It's a nineteen minutes-plus, stream-of-consciousness, improvised in-the-moment masterpiece. An ebb and flow dreamscape of sorts—the most fragile of delicacies and the most sacred and quiet moments slipped in beside emphatic percussive energy—music as enchanting as anything the pianist has ever created.
Then in walks Monk. Hersch includes a Thelonious Monk tune in most every set, most every recording. "Eronel" is a spritely interpretation by Hersch, who immerses himself the challenging music deeper than most anybody, peppering the stride-side with sparkling, water-splashing-off-the-rocks sounds, rolling into jagged eddies, leading into the closer, Billy Joel's "And So It Goes," solemn, simple, honest, beautiful.
Honesty—another hallmark of Hersch's art.
This is a recording that makes it seem as though Fred Hersch is the finest jazz pianist in the world. That's an impossible assertion, of course. There are a dozen, maybe more pianists who have achieved this level artistry. But for now, with Open Book, he can wear that title.
Track Listing:
The Orb; Whisper Not; Zingaro; Through the Forest; Plainsong; Eronel; And So It Goes.
Personnel:
Fred Hersch: piano