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Fred Hersch Trio: Floating
by Dan Bilawsky
Live albums and studio albums can by miles or millimeters apart in terms of presentation, conception, quality, layout and reception; it all depends on the circumstances and intentions when a record is made. Pianist Fred Hersch's Floating, for example, nearly erases that potential divide. While it's against his very nature, Hersch could've haphazardly thrown together a random list of tunes and gone into the studio cold, using an ad hoc group to flesh out this album. In ...
Continue ReadingFred Hersch Trio: Floating
by Dan McClenaghan
There's no arguing the considerable merits of pianist Fred Hersch's Alive at the Vanguard (Palmetto Records, 2012) or his Alone at the Vanguard (Palmetto Records, 2011), trio and solo efforts respectively, both recorded live at the legendary Village Vanguard, home of so many classic live sets. Hersch is at the height of his artistic powers in the place. It seems a consensus opinion that “Live" is better, an idea that has picked up credibility with the technical evolution resulting in ...
Continue ReadingFred Hersch at Miner Auditorium
by Harry S. Pariser
Fred Hersch Miner Auditorium, SFJazz Fred Hersch Solo at SF Performances San Francisco March 8, 2014 No stranger to San Francisco, pianist Fred Hersch has been a frequent guest of SF Performances, having last performed here in 2011 when he presented My Coma Dreams, an evening-long work for eleven instruments with a singing actor and multimedia and animation effects at Herbst Theater. (It is based on a real life experience in 2008.) San Franciscan ...
Continue ReadingFred Hersch and Julian Lage: Free Flying
by Victor L. Schermer
This album is the latest of several recordings in which pianist Fred Hersch solos or joins forces with some highly intelligent, advanced musicians to provide jazz renditions with a sophisticated, chamber music quality. Others are Hersch's Alone at the Vanguard (Palmetto, 2011); Leaves of Grass (Palmetto, 2005)--an ensemble composition based on Walt Whitman's poems--and two additional solo albums: Fred Hersch plays Jobim (Sunnyside, 2009) and In Amsterdam: Live at the Bimhuis (Palmetto, 2006). He also collaborated with trumpeter Ralph Alessi ...
Continue ReadingBenoît Delbecq and Fred Hersch Double Trio: Fun House
by AAJ Italy Staff
Benoît Delbecq è un pianista di punta della scena europea, attratto tanto dal jazz quanto dalle astrazioni geometriche della musica contemporanea. Ma anche dalla poliritmia e dai timbri dell'Africa. Fred Hersch è uno dei rari pianisti che sono riusciti a operare una sintesi convincente tra Bill Evans e Thelonious Monk. Senza gli autocompiacimenti oggi tanto frequenti. Dunque Hersch e Delbecq si distinguono nel panorama contemporaneo per qualità, coerenza e originalità. Ma la loro dimensione stilistica sembrava distante e non si ...
Continue ReadingFred Hersch: Alive at the Vanguard
by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
Pianist Fred Hersch's two-disc trio date is called Alive at the Vanguard. It's a very efficient title: it manages to say three important things about the album.On one hand, the title assertively claims the disc's place in the lofty company of other live albums recorded at the legendary Village Vanguard in New York. These parallels are established in Hersch's set list. Saxophonist Sonny Rollins' Night at the Village Vanguard, Vol. 2 (Blue Note, 1957), for example, also featured ...
Continue ReadingFred Hersch Trio: Alive at the Vanguard
by AAJ Italy Staff
Il piano-trio è una formazione classica, ampiamente usata (ed abusata) nella storia del jazz. Fred Hersch è tuttavia un pianista con le idee ben chiare su ciò che significa suonare in trio. Nella sua musica si trovano in perfetto equilibrio gusto per la melodia e paesaggi armonici variegati, interplay e arrangiamenti sofisticati, tocco cristallino e fraseggio impeccabile, tradizione jazzistica e “classicismo romantico," Thelonious Monk, Chopin e Lennie Tristano, africanismi e ballad, nobile mainstream e visioni cool. In Alive at the ...
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