Plays Jobim
By Victor L. Schermer
Track Listing:
Por Toda Minha Vida; O Grande Amor; Luiza; Meditacao; Insensatez; Brigas Nunca Mais; Modinha/Olha Maria; Desafinado; Corcovado. Personnel: Fred Hersch: piano; Jamey Haddad: percussion (6).
It is a pleasure to follow pianist Fred Hersch's recorded output as he delivers creative and deeply felt solo and small group jazz, seeking to express ideas that sometimes approach the mysterious and ineffable, yet remain rooted in the best of musical expression. In this excellent release, Hersch offers nine solo piano versions of the work of the late great and beloved co-inventor and master of Brazilian bossa nova, Antonio Carlos "Tom" Jobim, many of whose songs, initially brought to the jazz scene by guitarist Charlie Byrd and saxophonist Stan Getz and hitting the pinnacle of the pop charts with the vocal renderings of Astrud Gilberto and, later, Frank Sinatra, have become standards and touched the hearts of many.
As Hersch mentions in the brief reflections of his liner notes, he does not try to recapitulate the straight-ahead bossa nova renditions that he learned early in his career and that have characterized the multitude of recordings of Jobim's music. Rather, each is a meditation and sometimes even a deconstruction of what is contained in each song; in this sense, perhaps, reminiscent of the subtle renderings of guitarist Joao Gilberto. In gentle, reflective ballads such as the opening "Por Toda Minha Vida," "Luiza," and finale, "Corcovado," Hersch seeks to sustain a mood, often reminiscent of Bill Evans, and concentrating on the inner voicings of the Debussy-ian harmonies that influenced both the late pianist and Jobim. In a series of introspective variations, he goes into the corner pockets of the song, looking for an image here, a sense-memory there, a moment of truth everywhere. At times, like Evans, he achieves a loveliness that reaches down into the heart.
What Hersch does with the upbeat bossa novas like "O Grande Amor," Brigas Nunca Mais" (accompanied by percussionist Jamey Haddad), and "Desafinado" comes as a bit of a surprise, as he rocks and rags the bossa rhythm into something vaguely reminiscent of a cross between tango and hip hop, and which he explains in his commentary is based on Brazilian ragtime, "chorinhos." Once accustomed to it, the strong rhythm adds energy to the tunes that even Jobim might not have contemplated. Ultimately it is pure Hersch-play, specifically his unique way of finding something different, even a bit exotic, and going with it, although Jobim himself anticipated some of this fun in his wonderfully playful and intimate recording with Brazilian singer, Elis Regina.
All of the music here is infused with Hersch's ability to use his vast assimilation of classical and jazz genres to tell a story and improvise rich tapestries of harmony, counterpoint, and tone color that enter into a reflective reverie between himself and Jobim. He never retreats from complexity, and at times achieves a compositional richness which suggests that what he plays spontaneously could well be transcribed into an orchestral suite. This is not the casual Jobim that gets piped into restaurants and hotel bars. This is one master musician's homage to another, done with respect. One can be sure that Jobim himself—who, more than a song writer, incorporated his awareness of multiple musical modes, from Brazilian samba, to Debussy and Villa-Lobos, to West Coast "cool" jazz into his songs—would have felt honored and touched by Hersch's interpretations.
The Fred Hersch Trio
Dancing In The Dark
by Brian Bartolini
Fred Hersch and his bandmates interpret 11 standards on their fine album, Dancing in the Dark. Hersch is a lyrical player who possesses a light touch and a sophisticated sense of style. His playing is unmistakably influenced by Bill Evans, and his trio work is marked by some of the characteristics that made Evans' best trios so memorable: cohesive, "whole is greater than the sum of its parts," musical communication. Drew Gress (bass) and Tom Rainey (drums) are outstanding throughout these 70 minutes and their efforts become even more apparent with repeated listenings. The best tracks on Dancing in the Dark happen to also be the least well known; the brisk "So in Love," the delicate, solo vehicle "If I Should Lose You," the soft, orchestral "Wild Is the Wind," and the bright, swinging title piece. Though he occasionally takes a dissonant, avant-garde approach ("Out of Nowhere"), it is clearly not his most effective style. Hersch is at is best when he "sings" on the piano and his ballad playing is consistently first rate. This is a quality album, branded by excellent trio playing and tasteful interpretations of the standard repertoire.
Fred Hersch & Bill Frisell
Songs We Know
By Douglas Payne
Pairing two such superior soloists as guitarist Bill Frisell and pianist Fred Hersch seems a most unlikely match. Despite having gigged together a couple times in the 1980s, the only thing the two seem to have in common is they both record for Nonesuch Records. As it turns out, it was Fred Hersch's idea to finally get the two together in the studio - and it couldn't have been a more inspired combination.
The brilliant, eclectic Frisell is perhaps the most original guitarist of the last two or three decades and he's hardly ever combined his unique sound arsenal with a pianist.
Hersch, on the other hand, has carved out a substantial body of work illustrating his sensitivity as a soloist and finesse as a superior accompanist (particularly for singers), yet he's almost never heard with a guitarist.
The result is the marvelous new Songs We Know, a fine song cycle of contemporary jazz standards, played with a laid-back ease that only two such sharp and original stylists can bring to such well-known music.
Frisell and Hersch concur that the session could have gone many different ways, but it was their mutual love for the standards, with their open palette of simplicity, history and potential for new interpretation that lead to the inspired sounds heard on Songs We Know.
Both leaders have logged many miles playing these and other standards too: Frisell, as part of Paul Motian's trio with tenor giant Joe Lovano, and Hersch, through his recent Plays Monk and Plays Rogers & Hammerstein discs and, even more substantially, on his jazz-the-classics Angel recordings.
But, together, Frisell and Hersch - like Bill Evans and Jim Hall did together before them — bring to bear a fresh chemistry that is too rarely applied to such oft-played material. Hersch remains a melodic, sensitive - even erudite - explorer. And Frisell maintains his sense of humor and displays his ever-inspired internal logic. Together, they explore and experiment with the contours of each other's sound and style and arrive some place that neither might have approached on their own before.
The eleven Songs We Know have many highlights. Chief among the pleasures to be heard here include the playful and unusually funky "There Is No Greater Love," where Frisell's textbook witticisms engage with Hersch's perky, almost abstract commentary. Likewise, Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Wave" is creative music at its most expressive: where Hersch's piano provides the soft undercurrent while Frisell's sprite, melodic tones carry the tide in, conveying the hypnotic beauty of the sea that Jobim intended.
The two engage most spectacularly, and so nearly at odds, on "What is This Thing Called Love," where the metallic Frisell frolics in the warm cushions Hersch's block chords provide. Then, the pair commiserates romantically (a Hersch specialty) on the lullaby-like (a Frisell specialty) "Someday My Prince Will Come."
For real fireworks, listen to how quickly the two depart from the corniness of "Softly As In A Morning Sunrise" to explore a Monk-like tango of arched, deconstructed sonorities. Then, hear how their dissimilarities are unified on the dance-like "My Little Suede Shoes," where Frisell lays down a jig style head while Hersch's interacts brilliantly with lovely tango cadences.
Songs We Know is a success - and, more notably, a singularly pleasurable listening experience — because it's about more than songs. It's about sounds. Separately, these two stylists have crafted much music that is about the creation and interaction of sounds. Together, they have achieved something special, or what Boston Globe jazz critic Bob Blumenthal calls in his excellent liner notes, "an example of how texture works to shape a performance as directly as melodic or rhythmic invention."
Recorded in San Francisco last year, Songs We Know pins down the provocative sensitivity both Fred Hersch and Bill Frisell bring to creative music. But more importantly, it captures the wondrous result of two great minds spontaneously being expressed as one strong voice. It is a collection that calls out for more, hopefully an added set of the pair's originals. Until then, Songs We Know are songs creative music listeners will want to hear.
Songs:
It is a pleasure to follow pianist Fred Hersch's recorded output as he delivers creative and deeply felt solo and small group jazz, seeking to express ideas that sometimes approach the mysterious and ineffable, yet remain rooted in the best of musical expression. In this excellent release, Hersch offers nine solo piano versions of the work of the late great and beloved co-inventor and master of Brazilian bossa nova, Antonio Carlos "Tom" Jobim, many of whose songs, initially brought to the jazz scene by guitarist Charlie Byrd and saxophonist Stan Getz and hitting the pinnacle of the pop charts with the vocal renderings of Astrud Gilberto and, later, Frank Sinatra, have become standards and touched the hearts of many.
As Hersch mentions in the brief reflections of his liner notes, he does not try to recapitulate the straight-ahead bossa nova renditions that he learned early in his career and that have characterized the multitude of recordings of Jobim's music. Rather, each is a meditation and sometimes even a deconstruction of what is contained in each song; in this sense, perhaps, reminiscent of the subtle renderings of guitarist Joao Gilberto. In gentle, reflective ballads such as the opening "Por Toda Minha Vida," "Luiza," and finale, "Corcovado," Hersch seeks to sustain a mood, often reminiscent of Bill Evans, and concentrating on the inner voicings of the Debussy-ian harmonies that influenced both the late pianist and Jobim. In a series of introspective variations, he goes into the corner pockets of the song, looking for an image here, a sense-memory there, a moment of truth everywhere. At times, like Evans, he achieves a loveliness that reaches down into the heart.
What Hersch does with the upbeat bossa novas like "O Grande Amor," Brigas Nunca Mais" (accompanied by percussionist Jamey Haddad), and "Desafinado" comes as a bit of a surprise, as he rocks and rags the bossa rhythm into something vaguely reminiscent of a cross between tango and hip hop, and which he explains in his commentary is based on Brazilian ragtime, "chorinhos." Once accustomed to it, the strong rhythm adds energy to the tunes that even Jobim might not have contemplated. Ultimately it is pure Hersch-play, specifically his unique way of finding something different, even a bit exotic, and going with it, although Jobim himself anticipated some of this fun in his wonderfully playful and intimate recording with Brazilian singer, Elis Regina.
All of the music here is infused with Hersch's ability to use his vast assimilation of classical and jazz genres to tell a story and improvise rich tapestries of harmony, counterpoint, and tone color that enter into a reflective reverie between himself and Jobim. He never retreats from complexity, and at times achieves a compositional richness which suggests that what he plays spontaneously could well be transcribed into an orchestral suite. This is not the casual Jobim that gets piped into restaurants and hotel bars. This is one master musician's homage to another, done with respect. One can be sure that Jobim himself—who, more than a song writer, incorporated his awareness of multiple musical modes, from Brazilian samba, to Debussy and Villa-Lobos, to West Coast "cool" jazz into his songs—would have felt honored and touched by Hersch's interpretations.
The Fred Hersch Trio
Dancing In The Dark
by Brian Bartolini
Fred Hersch and his bandmates interpret 11 standards on their fine album, Dancing in the Dark. Hersch is a lyrical player who possesses a light touch and a sophisticated sense of style. His playing is unmistakably influenced by Bill Evans, and his trio work is marked by some of the characteristics that made Evans' best trios so memorable: cohesive, "whole is greater than the sum of its parts," musical communication. Drew Gress (bass) and Tom Rainey (drums) are outstanding throughout these 70 minutes and their efforts become even more apparent with repeated listenings. The best tracks on Dancing in the Dark happen to also be the least well known; the brisk "So in Love," the delicate, solo vehicle "If I Should Lose You," the soft, orchestral "Wild Is the Wind," and the bright, swinging title piece. Though he occasionally takes a dissonant, avant-garde approach ("Out of Nowhere"), it is clearly not his most effective style. Hersch is at is best when he "sings" on the piano and his ballad playing is consistently first rate. This is a quality album, branded by excellent trio playing and tasteful interpretations of the standard repertoire.
Fred Hersch & Bill Frisell
Songs We Know
By Douglas Payne
Pairing two such superior soloists as guitarist Bill Frisell and pianist Fred Hersch seems a most unlikely match. Despite having gigged together a couple times in the 1980s, the only thing the two seem to have in common is they both record for Nonesuch Records. As it turns out, it was Fred Hersch's idea to finally get the two together in the studio - and it couldn't have been a more inspired combination.
The brilliant, eclectic Frisell is perhaps the most original guitarist of the last two or three decades and he's hardly ever combined his unique sound arsenal with a pianist.
Hersch, on the other hand, has carved out a substantial body of work illustrating his sensitivity as a soloist and finesse as a superior accompanist (particularly for singers), yet he's almost never heard with a guitarist.
The result is the marvelous new Songs We Know, a fine song cycle of contemporary jazz standards, played with a laid-back ease that only two such sharp and original stylists can bring to such well-known music.
Frisell and Hersch concur that the session could have gone many different ways, but it was their mutual love for the standards, with their open palette of simplicity, history and potential for new interpretation that lead to the inspired sounds heard on Songs We Know.
Both leaders have logged many miles playing these and other standards too: Frisell, as part of Paul Motian's trio with tenor giant Joe Lovano, and Hersch, through his recent Plays Monk and Plays Rogers & Hammerstein discs and, even more substantially, on his jazz-the-classics Angel recordings.
But, together, Frisell and Hersch - like Bill Evans and Jim Hall did together before them — bring to bear a fresh chemistry that is too rarely applied to such oft-played material. Hersch remains a melodic, sensitive - even erudite - explorer. And Frisell maintains his sense of humor and displays his ever-inspired internal logic. Together, they explore and experiment with the contours of each other's sound and style and arrive some place that neither might have approached on their own before.
The eleven Songs We Know have many highlights. Chief among the pleasures to be heard here include the playful and unusually funky "There Is No Greater Love," where Frisell's textbook witticisms engage with Hersch's perky, almost abstract commentary. Likewise, Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Wave" is creative music at its most expressive: where Hersch's piano provides the soft undercurrent while Frisell's sprite, melodic tones carry the tide in, conveying the hypnotic beauty of the sea that Jobim intended.
The two engage most spectacularly, and so nearly at odds, on "What is This Thing Called Love," where the metallic Frisell frolics in the warm cushions Hersch's block chords provide. Then, the pair commiserates romantically (a Hersch specialty) on the lullaby-like (a Frisell specialty) "Someday My Prince Will Come."
For real fireworks, listen to how quickly the two depart from the corniness of "Softly As In A Morning Sunrise" to explore a Monk-like tango of arched, deconstructed sonorities. Then, hear how their dissimilarities are unified on the dance-like "My Little Suede Shoes," where Frisell lays down a jig style head while Hersch's interacts brilliantly with lovely tango cadences.
Songs We Know is a success - and, more notably, a singularly pleasurable listening experience — because it's about more than songs. It's about sounds. Separately, these two stylists have crafted much music that is about the creation and interaction of sounds. Together, they have achieved something special, or what Boston Globe jazz critic Bob Blumenthal calls in his excellent liner notes, "an example of how texture works to shape a performance as directly as melodic or rhythmic invention."
Recorded in San Francisco last year, Songs We Know pins down the provocative sensitivity both Fred Hersch and Bill Frisell bring to creative music. But more importantly, it captures the wondrous result of two great minds spontaneously being expressed as one strong voice. It is a collection that calls out for more, hopefully an added set of the pair's originals. Until then, Songs We Know are songs creative music listeners will want to hear.
Songs:
It Might As Well Be Spring; There Is No Greater Love; Someday My Prince Will Come; Softly As In A Morning Sunrise; Blue Monk; My One And Only Love; My Little Suede Shoes; Yesterdays; I Got Rhythm; Wave; What Is This Thing Called Love.
Players:
Players:
Fred Hersch: Steinway piano; Bill Frisell: acoustic and Klien electric guitar.
Fred Hersch Trio
Horizons
Fred Hersch Trio
Horizons
by Scott Yanow
Fred Hersch's debut as a leader was this trio set with bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joey Baron. Hersch, who mixes together elements of Bill Evans and Tommy Flanagan with his own approach to chordal improvisation, already sounds fairly individual on such numbers as "My Heart Stood Still," Herbie Hancock's "One Finger Snap," and "The Surrey With the Fringe on Top." The superior compositions and Hersch's own logical but fresh style made this an impressive beginning to his productive solo career.
The Fred Hersch Trio
Night and The Music
By Victor L. Schermer
Track Listing:
Fred Hersch's debut as a leader was this trio set with bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joey Baron. Hersch, who mixes together elements of Bill Evans and Tommy Flanagan with his own approach to chordal improvisation, already sounds fairly individual on such numbers as "My Heart Stood Still," Herbie Hancock's "One Finger Snap," and "The Surrey With the Fringe on Top." The superior compositions and Hersch's own logical but fresh style made this an impressive beginning to his productive solo career.
The Fred Hersch Trio
Night and The Music
By Victor L. Schermer
Track Listing:
So in Love; Rhythm Spirit; Heartland; Galaxy Fragment/You and the Night and the Music; Boo Boos Birthday; Change Partners; How Deep is the Ocean; Gravitys Pull; Andrew John; Misterioso.
Personnel:
Personnel:
Fred Hersch: piano; Drew Gress: bass; Nasheet Waits: drums.
Pianist Fred Hersch is proving himself to be not only a solid mainstream jazz pianist but also an imaginative and creative musical force. His Leaves of Grass (Palmetto, 2005), with vocalist Kurt Elling broke new ground by setting the poetry of Walt Whitman to written and improvised musical composition incorporating jazz and traditional "heartland American motifs. Fred Hersch Live at the Bimhuis (Palmetto, 2006) offered a panoply of solo piano music at a high level of sophistication and technique.
On Night and the Music, Hersch joins forces with bassist Drew Gress and drummer Nasheet Waits, using the richly interactive and expressive piano trio format (as powerfully developed by Bill Evans and taken further by Keith Jarrett) to form a latticework of images and musical ideas that is both highly listenable and relentlessly probing. The tracks include several originals, some American Songbook standards, and two Thelonious Monk compositions. The three musicians function as a tight, integrated unit sustaining stylistic integrity and steadiness of purpose such that the total impression is that of a unified exploration of the possibilities inherent in a series of tri-alogues about a few key ideas initiated by Hersch at the keyboard.
The thematics of the album are more implied than stated, encouraging and allowing the listener to bring in his or her own understanding. The overriding motif is the dialogue between personal human experience and the cosmos, a dualistic mythos of Enlightenment philosophy that was a recurrent preoccupation of none other than Beethoven. Thus, for example, an original called "Galaxies is combined with the standard "You and the Night and the Music. Monk's "Boo Boo's Birthday is a personal testament, while his "Misterioso haunts us with a reach towards something beyond the human, something cosmic. "Change Partners contrasts with "Gravity's Pull.
And so on, in an alternating exploration of possibilities inherent in the "starry nights of both Van Gogh and the astronomers. There are also some echoes of the late Beethoven in the complex counterpoint that emerges among Hersch, Gress, and Waits as they brood together on the vicissitudes of Fate and what it all might mean.
This CD is conservative in its layout of what could be a coherent nightclub set rather than a juxtaposition of discordant variation that is characteristic of some of Hersch's other recordings. A comparison with the groundbreaking Bill Evans trio's At the Village Vanguard (Riverside, 1961) is inevitable. Both are non-stop introspective explorations (coincidentally the title of one of Evans' best albums). However, Evans was undeniably a romantic, while Hersch is anything but sentimental.
On this CD, the music is presented as a series of puzzles and conundrums examined with Zen-like detachment or perhaps, in another regard, the mathematical precision of J.S. Bach. One is indeed moved, but not so much by the depth of feeling as by the imposing architecture of the musical development itself.
Pianist Fred Hersch is proving himself to be not only a solid mainstream jazz pianist but also an imaginative and creative musical force. His Leaves of Grass (Palmetto, 2005), with vocalist Kurt Elling broke new ground by setting the poetry of Walt Whitman to written and improvised musical composition incorporating jazz and traditional "heartland American motifs. Fred Hersch Live at the Bimhuis (Palmetto, 2006) offered a panoply of solo piano music at a high level of sophistication and technique.
On Night and the Music, Hersch joins forces with bassist Drew Gress and drummer Nasheet Waits, using the richly interactive and expressive piano trio format (as powerfully developed by Bill Evans and taken further by Keith Jarrett) to form a latticework of images and musical ideas that is both highly listenable and relentlessly probing. The tracks include several originals, some American Songbook standards, and two Thelonious Monk compositions. The three musicians function as a tight, integrated unit sustaining stylistic integrity and steadiness of purpose such that the total impression is that of a unified exploration of the possibilities inherent in a series of tri-alogues about a few key ideas initiated by Hersch at the keyboard.
The thematics of the album are more implied than stated, encouraging and allowing the listener to bring in his or her own understanding. The overriding motif is the dialogue between personal human experience and the cosmos, a dualistic mythos of Enlightenment philosophy that was a recurrent preoccupation of none other than Beethoven. Thus, for example, an original called "Galaxies is combined with the standard "You and the Night and the Music. Monk's "Boo Boo's Birthday is a personal testament, while his "Misterioso haunts us with a reach towards something beyond the human, something cosmic. "Change Partners contrasts with "Gravity's Pull.
And so on, in an alternating exploration of possibilities inherent in the "starry nights of both Van Gogh and the astronomers. There are also some echoes of the late Beethoven in the complex counterpoint that emerges among Hersch, Gress, and Waits as they brood together on the vicissitudes of Fate and what it all might mean.
This CD is conservative in its layout of what could be a coherent nightclub set rather than a juxtaposition of discordant variation that is characteristic of some of Hersch's other recordings. A comparison with the groundbreaking Bill Evans trio's At the Village Vanguard (Riverside, 1961) is inevitable. Both are non-stop introspective explorations (coincidentally the title of one of Evans' best albums). However, Evans was undeniably a romantic, while Hersch is anything but sentimental.
On this CD, the music is presented as a series of puzzles and conundrums examined with Zen-like detachment or perhaps, in another regard, the mathematical precision of J.S. Bach. One is indeed moved, but not so much by the depth of feeling as by the imposing architecture of the musical development itself.
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