Jazz Articles about Fred Hersch

Fred Hersch: Alone At The Vanguard

by Wilbert Sostre
April 9, 2011

Alone at The Vanguard is pianist Fred Hersch's first solo performance at New York's Village Vanguard, after his serious illness and coma in 2008. The release was recorded during the final set on the last night of his six-day run in 2010, and the solo recital format gives the disc an intimate, almost classical music feel, engendering a full appreciation of Hersch's emotional and technical intensity.A three-time Grammy nominee, two as a pianist and one as a composer, ...

Fred Hersch Trio + 2: New York City, March 5, 2011

by Victor L. Schermer
March 17, 2011

Fred Hersch Trio + 2Jazz Standard,New York CIty, NYMarch 5, 2011 Fred Hersch is one of today's most prominent jazz pianists, extending the limits of the jazz idiom with rare finesse and a sense of meaning and implication in every note he plays. This was one of five consecutive evenings featuring Hersch at New York's Jazz Standard, each with different personnel--itself, a creative variance from traditional series, featuring the same group. On this and ...

Fred Hersch: Alone at the Vanguard

by Charles Walker
March 8, 2011

If there's anything left to be said about pianist/composer Fred Hersch's resurgence after his 2008 battle with AIDS-related dementia and the subsequent two-month long coma that entailed the complete loss of motor skills in both of his hands, it's this: there is not a single measure of this seventy minutes of solo piano that requires the slightest bit of apology, disclaimer or defense. His touch is so varied and sure, his melodic imagination so seemingly limitless, his abstracted arrangements of ...

Fred Hersch: Alone At The Vanguard

by Dan Bilawsky
February 26, 2011

Creating an album title--Alone At The Vanguard--that reads as a double entendre and an oxymoron--whether intentional or not--is a great achievement, but not nearly as impressive as the music that pianist Fred Hersch presents on this live recording. While the Vanguard in the title is a direct reference to the hallowed basement club in New York City where this album was recorded, Hersch truly holds a rarefied position in the vanguard of the jazz pianist ranks. While he has been ...

Fred Hersch: Alone at the Village Vanguard

by Dan McClenaghan
February 22, 2011

Pianist Fred Hersch almost cashed out back in 2008, when he fell ill with AIDs-related complications and spent seven weeks in a coma. The recovery was arduous, the resumption of his wide-ranging and top-level musical artistry uncertain--an uncertainty erased without a trace by Whirl (Palmetto Records, 2010), a trio set so assured, vibrant and beautiful that it would surely show up in any knowing top ten list of the best piano trio sets of the new millennium's first decade.

Fred Hersch: Whirl

by Dan Bilawsky
June 15, 2010

Fred Hersch Whirl Palmetto Records 2010

Many of the greatest jazz musicians have refused to let physical setbacks derail their artistic journey. When Les Paul discovered his broken arm would be permanently set in one position, he made sure it was at a proper angle for guitar playing. Guitarist Pat Martino suffered a brain aneurysm and had to relearn to play the guitar--and rediscover his very being. Pianist Fred Hersch can now be added ...

Fred Hersch Pocket Orchestra: Live at Jazz Standard

by Ken Dryden
May 7, 2010

Fred Hersch has amassed an impressive discography since his arrival on the jazz scene in the '70s. In addition to stints with Stan Getz, Art Farmer and Toots Thielemans, and numerous appearances as a sideman, the pianist has recorded over two dozen albums as a leader, co-leader or solo performer, as well as composing extensively. Hersch, who revealed his HIV-positive status as a gay man sometime ago, has also been active in AIDS education, though the past few years have ...