Jazz pianist and composer Fred Hersch celebrates the art of the duo with
Fred Hersch & Friends, an ongoing series of singles
debuting March 6, 2020 with Hersch and Miguel Zenón in Little Suede Shoes
March 20, 2020 release features Hersch and Sarah Gazarek
in Dreams/Darn That Dream
Other 2020 highlights include his first-ever recording with rhythm section and string quartet to be released via Palmetto in late summer; duo performances April 9 – 11 at UC Davis and
May 12 – 17 at the Jazz Standard in NYC
Jazz pianist and composer Fred Hersch will release some of his favorite duo performances with Fred Hersch & Friends, an ongoing series of singles. The first single, available March 6, 2020, features the Fred Hersch Duo with Miguel Zenón performing Little Suede Shoes. The Fred Hersch Duo with Sara Gazarek, performing Dreams/Darn That Dream, will be out March 20. The singles will be available from Palmetto Records via iTunes, Spotify and Amazon.
Hersch’s duo performances are legendary. Every May for nearly 15 years, he has hosted a week-long Invitation Series at Jazz Standard in NYC. This year’s Invitation Series runs May 12 – 17.
“My interest in duo performance started when I was at New England Conservatory in the mid-'70s. There wasn't a great student rhythm section there at that time, so I began playing duos in the practice rooms with horn players and fellow pianists,” says Hersch. “Fred Hersch & Friends is designed to release spontaneous musical encounters with musicians I love in various live situations. In this day of auto-tune and endless editing, the performances are released just as they came down.”
March 6, 2020 – Fred Hersch Duo with Miguel Zenón
Little Suede Shoes. Recorded Live at Jazz Standard NYC 5/10/18.
“Miguel has been one of my favorites - and since our first duo at the Jazz Standard about five years ago I have had the pleasure of playing with him in other venues when our schedules permit,” says Hersch. “He has a gorgeous sound, a deep knowledge of the language of jazz, impeccable time, big ears and is open to play just about anything with an ‘in the moment’ approach which is so essential to my idea of music-making. Little Suede Shoes is a calypso by Charlie Parker and I just called it on the spot. And I ended up visiting a number of different keys during my solo. The energy is great and the audience at the club loved it.”
March 20, 2020 – Fred Hersch Duo with Sara Gazarek
Dreams/Darn That Dream. Recorded Live at UC Davis 4/12/19
“This was my first time playing with Sara Gazarek,” says Hersch. “I was familiar with her from her recordings and the buzz about her has been very strong lately - she was nominated for a 2020 Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album. She possesses an ability to be spontaneous, is a first-rate musician and is deeply connected to any lyric she sings. The introduction, Dreams is a freely improvised take on a poem by Sara Teasdale - and it connect seamlessly into the standard Darn That Dream’ The vibe is magic, and her performance is deep. This was recorded at the Mondavi Center in Davis, CA last year, when I started a West Coast version of my Invitation Series there.”
First-ever recording with rhythm section and string quartet
Hersch also plans to release his first-ever album with a string quartet and rhythm section. The individual pieces on the album are inspired, in part, by aspects of his 20-year vipassana meditation practice. Performing on the album will be Drew Gress on bass and Jochen Ruckert on drums and percussion, as well as an all-female group of New York's finest freelance string players who have appeared on projects by Esperanza Spalding and numerous others, as well as on Hersch's own projects including My Coma Dreams and Leaves of Grass. Joyce Hammann and Laura Seaton, violins; Lois Martin, viola; and Jody Redhage, cello. The album will be released on Palmetto Records in late summer 2020.
“I grew up listening to string quartets as a young musician in Cincinnati. My piano teacher was the wife of the cellist in the famous LaSalle Quartet,” says Hersch. “I used to lie on the rug in their living room while they rehearsed. And when I started studying composition at age eight, I would follow along, hearing how the viola part meshed with the first violin, or the first violin and the cello. My music has always started with four parts, so it’s a natural fit for me.”
FRED HERSCH
A select member of jazz’s piano pantheon, Fred Hersch is a pervasively influential creative force who has shaped the music’s course over more than three decades as an improviser, composer, educator, bandleader, collaborator and recording artist. He has been proclaimed “the most arrestingly innovative pianist in jazz over the last decade” by Vanity Fair, “an elegant force of musical invention” by The L.A. Times, and “a living legend” by The New Yorker.
A fifteen-time Grammy nominee, Hersch has regularly garnered jazz’s most prestigious awards and has long set the standard for expressive interpretation and inventive creativity, whether through his exquisite solo performances, as the leader of one of jazz’s era-defining trios, or in eloquent dialogue with his deeply attuned duo partners. His acclaimed 2017 memoir, Good Things Happen Slowly (Crown Archetype Books/Random House), was named one of 2017’s Five Best Memoirs by the Washington Post and The New York Times.
Fred Hersch Spring 2020 Performances
• Friday, March 27 – DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, Notre Dame, IN – Trio
• Friday, April 3 – University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX – Trio
• Saturday, April 4 – Argyros Performing Arts Center, Ketchum, ID – Solo
• Monday, April 6 – Kuumbwa Jazz, Santa Cruz, CA – Solo
• Thurs. – Sat., April 9–11 – Mondavi Center, UC Davis, Davis, CA – Duo with Miguel Zenón
• Monday, April 13 – Garfield Theater, San Diego, CA – Solo
• Sunday, April 26 – April Jazz Espoo 2020, Espoo, Finland – Solo
• Monday, April 27 – Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Gelsenkirchen, Germany – Trio
• Wednesday, April 29 – details TBA, Bari, Italy – Trio
• Thursday, May 7 – Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, Kalamazoo, MI – Trio
• Saturday, May 9 – Westport Arts Center, Westport, CT – Trio
