Jazz Articles about Fred Hersch

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Fred Hersch: After You've Gone

by Geno Thackara
November 20, 2023

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Fred Hersch: Alive... And Kicking

by Jiaowei Hu
September 6, 2023

Few musicians have shaped jazz with such elegant, instinctive, and intimate variations as Fred Hersch. Constantly. Over four decades, life's ups and downs have not stopped him from coming back, time and again, to performing live. No word other than “alive" can be more suitable for the pianist, and it is no coincidence that he chose it to title his album Alive at the Village Vanguard (Palmetto Records, 2023), where he creates special chemistry with vocalist Esperanza Spalding. This live ...

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Enrico Rava: The Song Is You

by Richard J Salvucci
April 5, 2023

There are times when the reason for listening is that something is beautiful. What exactly qualifies as beautiful is one of the long-running controversies in Western philosophy, not a matter for amateur debate when the contributors include people such as Hume, Kant, or Hegel. Surely, above the pay grade of the average critic. Not everyone thinks that Chet Baker always played beautifully. For sure, there were many times Baker was not worth hearing. But his admirers will tell ...

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Fred Hersch and Esperanza Spalding at Yoshi's

by Roy Strassman
February 15, 2023

Fred Hersch and Esperanza Spalding Yoshis Oakland, CA January 27, 22023 Esperanza Spalding and Fred Hersch graced Yoshi's patrons with their presence last Thursday and Friday. Dressed in a black outfit and white “Life Force" t-shirt, Spalding presented a counterpoised contrast to Hersch, who was conservative in appearance and avuncular in affect. They seemed like an unusual match made in heaven, in some jazz galaxy far away. While it was known that this ...

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Enrico Rava: The Song Is You

by Mario Calvitti
January 30, 2023

Non sempre gli incontri tra grandi musicisti producono risultati artistici all'altezza delle aspettative, necessariamente alte, e spesso procurano invece delusioni più o meno cocenti. Fortunatamente non è questo il caso della coppia formata dal trombettista Enrico Rava e dal pianista Fred Hersch, entrambi musicisti ampiamente affermati e senza bisogno di presentazioni, ma che finora non avevano mai incrociato le proprie strade. L'inedita collaborazione è iniziata con una breve serie di concerti in Italia nell'estate 2021, in cui i ...

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Fred Hersch & Esperanza Spalding: Alive at the Village Vanguard

by John Chacona
January 26, 2023

Is it possible that we underestimate Esperanza Spalding? That would be quite a trick for an artist who has hardly been out of the spotlight since leapfrogging a couple of nobodies named Drake and Justin Bieber to take the Grammy award for Best New Artist in 2011. With a recent resume that includes a high-profile teaching position at Harvard (now ended), a collaboration with preeminent jazz composer Wayne Shorter on the opera “Iphigenia" and a fifth Grammy for 2022's Songwrights ...

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Nadje Noordhuis: Full Circle

by Chris May
December 2, 2022

In terms of an honest assessment of an artist's qualities, press releases are rarely worth the paper they are no longer printed on. An exception is the release accompanying Australian-born, New York-based trumpeter and composer Nadje Noordhuis' exquisitely lyrical Full Circle. It is an exception partly because it is written by Elan Mehler, the artistic director of audiophile label Newvelle Records and a pianist who first blew the mind of this reviewer with his quietly sensational sophomore album, The After ...