Fred Hersch: Silent, listening – Jazz Journal

It seems that Fred Hersch has finally found his natural home, where he belongs on ECM with its historic roster of solo pianists. He recorded for the label for the first time in November 2021, in a spontaneous duo with trumpeter Enrico Rava, then wanted to repeat the experience as a solo pianist, in the same hall in Lugano, where the acoustics were perfect, and on the same piano, too, with Manfred Eicher again as producer.

As befits the label newcomer, he begins this set hesitantly, reverently, with a stripped-down rendition of Billy Strayhorn’s Star-Crossed Lovers, but then strengthens his hand on a series of his own compositions. Night Tide Light is fractured and episodic, Akrasia – meaning acting against one’s best interests – alludes to life during lockdown when Hersch indulged in detective novels and computer games he knew he should avoid, while the title track has written material at the beginning and end, allowing Hersch to improvise over his motifs to great effect in the middle.

Throughout, what he calls his open improvisation – the play of “non-melodies”, as he calls them – gives him space to explore and develop, his delicate Starlight, for example, blossoming in one episode luxurious, while Aeon is thinner in texture. , its high register notes contrasting with an undertow of bass.

Three standards complete the set, which he had no idea he was going to play: “I just kind of felt them in the moment,” he explains. Russ Freeman’s The Wind offers one of the album’s most magical moments, a one-take deconstruction that’s gentle but full of emotion. Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise by Sigmund Romberg repeats the ingenuity of probably his most famous performer, Sonny Rollins, while the concluding Winter Of My Discontent, suggested to Hersch by its composer Alec Wilder during their first meeting in New York , delights in its fittingly nostalgic and poignant delivery. It provides a nice ending to what is a solid solo debut on the label.

Discography
Star-crossed lovers; Night tide light; Akrasia; Silent, listening; Stars light; Infinite time; Little song; The wind; Volon; Softly, as at the rising of the morning sun; The Winter of My Discontent (50.44)
Hersch (p). Lugano, Switzerland, May 2023.
MCE 5890962