{"id":6087,"date":"2016-08-27T09:00:06","date_gmt":"2016-08-27T09:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.artinfo.com\/blunotes\/?p=6087"},"modified":"2016-08-27T09:00:06","modified_gmt":"2016-08-27T09:00:06","slug":"fred-hersch-at-home-at-the-vanguard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2016\/08\/27\/fred-hersch-at-home-at-the-vanguard\/","title":{"rendered":"Fred Hersch, At Home at the Vanguard"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"photo<\/a>
photo by Martin Zemin<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nI try not to miss pianist Fred Hersch<\/strong> when he performs at the Village Vanguard. Hersch shapes the sound of his piano with care and fine calibration, which is doubly rewarded by the club’s celebrated acoustics.
\nI began my Wall Street Journal review<\/a> of Hersch’s new CD, “Sunday Night at the Village Vanguard,” (recorded there in March) with an account of him on a recent August Tuesday night. As I wrote there:
\n“he projected the comfort of a man settled into a favorite easy chair\u2026.\u00a0As much as any musician, Mr. Hersch considers the Vanguard home. For any jazz lover the basement venue on Seventh Avenue South, which opened in 1935, resonates with history. Its pie-slice shape makes it gorgeously resonant in acoustical terms. For both reasons, musicians have long been moved to record there.”
\nI also pointed out that “this new release, recorded on the final night of a March engagement, highlights the continuing development of Mr. Hersch\u2019s trio, now seven years running. It\u2019s a wondrous vehicle, set in motion by Mr. Hersch\u2019s music and his crafty interpretations of a wide range of material, but fueled largely by the imaginations of his inventive partners.”
\nHersch made his Vanguard debut as a leader in 1996. By then, his career was well established. Yet Hersch has always been determined to do things his way. He resisted the invitations to play the club with all-star rhythm sections; he waited until he could bring his own band in, and that stubbornness has paid off.
\nI’d documented Hersch’s remarkable comeback from a debilitating two-month coma in 2008. Back then, he told me:
\n\u201cPeople tell me that my playing is somehow deeper now since my recovery. I can\u2019t judge whether that\u2019s true or not. But I\u2019ve always been determined to be my own man at the piano. And now, I feel even more of a desire to just be Fred.\u201d
\nIt’s hard to say how much his brush with death and the rigor of rehabilitation had to do with the clarity and exalted expression evident in Hersch’s playing these days, and how much of that is simply the natural maturation of a great talent, back on course. When I listen to Hersch now, the answer hardly matters.
\nThe full review is below:
\nTHE WALL STREET JOURNAL
\nAug. 23, 2016
\nSunday Night at the Vanguard<\/strong>
\nLooking at the special bond between a club and a composer.
\nBy LARRY BLUMENFELD
\nNew York<\/em>
\nNot long into the opening set of pianist Fred Hersch\u2019s six-night stand at Manhattan\u2019s Village Vanguard last week, he performed a playful new original composition, \u201cBegin Again.\u201d Soon after, a wistful old one, \u201cSarabande.\u201d He sounded gently glistening figures to start and end a composition by trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, \u201cEverybody\u2019s Song but My Own,\u201d in between teasing complex possibilities from it with his trio mates, bassist John H\u00e9bert and drummer Eric McPherson. Throughout, he projected the comfort of a man settled into a favorite easy chair.
\nAs much as any musician, Mr. Hersch considers the Vanguard home. For any jazz lover the basement venue on Seventh Avenue South, which opened in 1935, resonates with history. Its pie-slice shape makes it gorgeously resonant in acoustical terms. For both reasons, musicians have long been moved to record there.
\n\u201cSunday Night at the Vanguard\u201d (Palmetto), Mr. Hersch\u2019s new release, is his fourth recorded at the club. The venue figures prominently in his personal history, too. He first played there in 1980 with a 12-piece group co-led by bassist Sam Jones and trumpeter Tom Harrell; performed at the club regularly in the 1980s in bands led by saxophonist Joe Henderson; made his debut as a leader with a trio there in 1996; and in January 2009 served notice of his recovery from a debilitating coma by fronting a quintet on the Vanguard stage.
\nIn the years since, Mr. Hersch\u2019s recordings have displayed not just renewed vigor but a deepened intensity and a clearer, more complete musical vision. This new CD underscores the point that, at 60, he stands among jazz\u2019s first rank of pianists, yet promotes no particular style. He plays it his way: with a light touch and a focus on melody one moment; swinging freely the next as he inverts harmonies or deconstructs forms; tender, then tough, then yet more tender, always shaping the sound of his piano or his band into something personal.
\nThis new release, recorded on the final night of a March engagement, highlights the continuing development of Mr. Hersch\u2019s trio, now seven years running. It\u2019s a wondrous vehicle, set in motion by Mr. Hersch\u2019s music and his crafty interpretations of a wide range of material, but fueled largely by the imaginations of his inventive partners. At the Vanguard, one could see how freely Mr. McPherson moves around his trap set, rarely settling into conventional drum patterns. On the new release, one can hear the manipulations of pulse that result from such activity, especially on a Hersch original, \u201cSerpentine.\u201d In person, Messrs. Hersch and H\u00e9bert often appear as if in conversation. Their overlapping phrases sound that way as recorded on \u201cCalligram,\u201d one of Mr. Hersch\u2019s most daring compositions.
\nMr. Hersch is a master song interpreter. If the lyrics to Lennon-McCartney classic \u201cFor No One\u201d capture the distress of unrequited love, Mr. Hersch\u2019s instrumental version here suggests what it means to sit with such pain; he inserts a knowing pause before what would be the sung line \u201cshe no longer needs you.\u201d His investments in songs accrue over time. His first recording of Jimmy Rowles\u2019s \u201cThe Peacocks,\u201d 30 years ago, sounded authoritative; here, it is a showstopper of unanticipated dramatic sweep.
\nMr. Hersch has a particular fascination with Thelonious Monk\u2019s music, to which he devoted one landmark 1998 album and which he features during every performance. \u201cWe See\u201d is one Monk tune he hadn\u2019t recorded before; he alters it knowingly, without toppling the architecture or disturbing its air of mystery. Yet Mr. Hersch always returns to his own music. \u201cValentine,\u201d his customary encore these days, ends this album as a gesture of pure beauty, offered without guile or compromise.
\nAt the Vanguard last week, Mr. Hersch sat at the piano under the watchful eyes of framed portraits of piano-jazz masters Bill Evans and Tommy Flanagan, whose legacy he extends; and of himself, hung there several years ago. It seemed as if he were playing piano at home, beneath family photos. In a way, that was so.
\nMr. Blumenfeld writes about jazz for the Journal. He also blogs at blogs.artinfo.com\/blunotes.<\/em>
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I try not to miss pianist Fred Hersch when he performs at the Village Vanguard. Hersch shapes the sound of his piano with care and fine calibration, which is doubly rewarded by the club’s celebrated acoustics. I began my Wall Street Journal review of Hersch’s new CD, “Sunday Night at the Village Vanguard,” (recorded there … <\/p>\n

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