PRESS RELEASE – For immediate release
Contact: Eugene Uman at eugene@vtjazz.org or 802 258 8822
Fred Hersch Trio to Inaugurate 9’ Steinway D at Vermont Jazz Center’s Cotton Mill Hill Venue
Short Summary
Who: Fred Hersch, piano; John Hébert, bass; Eric McPherson, drums
What: Jazz Piano Trio performing Jazz Standards, the music of Thelonious Monk and original compositions
When: Saturday, March 12th, 8:00 PM
Where: The Vermont Jazz Center, 72 Cotton Mill Hill, #222, Brattleboro, VT 05301
Tickets available: online at www.vtjazz.org, by email at ginger@vtjazz.org, by phone 802 254 9088, in person at In The Moment, Main St., Brattleboro, VT.
The Vermont Jazz Center is proud to welcome the legendary pianist Fred Hersch to its Cotton Mill venue on Saturday, March 12th at 8:00 PM. He will be performing with his working trio of Jon Hébert (bass) and Eric McPherson (drums). Hersch is one of the leading jazz pianists in the world. Through his commitment to originality, embrace of romanticism, mastery of the bebop language and chameleon-like ability to blend genres Hersch has carved out a unique niche that is—as Ellington would have said—“beyond category.”
Now in his late 50s, Hersch’s example serves as a bridge between younger players who have studied jazz formally and the old-school cats who learned on the bandstand and from recordings. He states that he “… learned in the oral tradition from older players” and he especially lauds any musician who has made it on their own and shaped their own voice. He affirms his own path on this road by saying “maybe that’s the reason why I sound like me – because nobody interfered with me. I didn’t take jazz piano lessons, I didn’t go through all that kind of nonsense – what I play is mine.”
In the late 70s while in his mid 20s, Hersch emerged into the heart of the fruitful New York City jazz scene with force and tremendous ambition. He found work with titans like Joe Henderson, Stan Getz, Billy Harper and Art Farmer and, as a young man, he even played gigs with his own trio at Bradley’s—a legendary venue which served as an exclusive showcase for seasoned heavy-weight pianists like Kenny Barron, Tommy Flanagan, Hank Jones, Barry Harris. Hersch remembers “You could hang out at the bar, and there was Art Blakey, smashed and hitting on the woman next to him. I wanted to play with the greatest players in the world, and I was probably pushy, but that’s how I achieved what I did.” Bad Plus pianist Ethan Iverson (age 43) put his finger on Hersch’s position as a pivotal figure in jazz piano history: “The way that pianists of my generation have learned about the music is through the sort of artificial world of records and scores, and not really natural assimilation. Fred absorbed the whole jazz tradition in the deepest possible way, and that’s only the foundation of his playing. It was just his starting point. For a lot of other pianists, that would be the end point.”
For many leading younger pianists (inculding Iverson and Jason Moran, both of whom studied with him), Hersch serves as a fundamental link in the lineage of jazz piano that expands beyond the groundbreaking work of Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock. According to Brad Mehldau, another of Hersch’s notable students, “Fred’s musical world is a world where a lot of the developments of jazz history and all of music history come together in a very contemporary way. His style has a lot to do with thinking as an individual, and it has a lot to do with beauty. I wouldn’t be doing what I do if I hadn’t learned from Fred, and I think that’s true of quite a few other people.” Many pianists who have been trained within the jazz education curriculum are themselves stuck in the bebop and postbop traditions. Hersch’s music and attitude serve as an example that gives jazz pianists (whose improvisational language is limited) permission to express their individuality and to stick to their own inner compass rather than to strictly emulate the playing of others. His open-minded concept (like that of Paul Bley) gives other options to a new generation of pianists many of whom feel that the only way to survive in jazz is to mimic piano legends like Wynton Kelly, McCoy Tyner or Herbie Hancock (although transcribing and understanding the personal language of these masters is a critical part of a pianist’s jazz education). David Hajdu in the New York Times wrote: Hersch’s music — luxurious, free-flowing, unashamedly gorgeous jazz — is idiosyncratically, unmistakably a creation of his own.”
What is it that makes Fred Hersch’s music so unique, so personal? Perhaps it’s that he knows what it’s like to be on the edge of death and that has reinforced his commitment to be a truth-teller, to eschew the expectations of the mainstream and create a personal, improvisational language. For many who support the causes of the LGBT community, Hersch is somewhat of a hero. He was the first jazz musician to come out as gay and HIV-positive in the early 1990s, and he miraculously survived a two-month AIDS-related coma in 2008. “I’ve been through a lot, and I want to make something of it, musically,” Hersch said. “I thought every album I did was going to be my last album,” he went on. “Being sick and knowing my time is precious has made me want to be totally myself in my music. I decided that I wasn’t interested in playing hip music for hip cats. So I don’t pander to an audience. I’m completely comfortable with what I do, and I just don’t care what other people are doing…It’s kind of a miracle that I’m here at all,” he said. “It’s interesting — I had to learn to work with a more limited palette, technically, as a pianist. At the same time, I felt stronger than ever, creatively. I found that I had more interesting things to say musically. I had more to express, and what I had to say didn’t require pyrotechnics.” Fred’s recording engineer, Michael MacDonald affirms Hersch’s focus: “Since his illnesses, he’s matured musically and also emotionally, in saying, ‘Everything I do has to have meaning and has to be my best game, because I don’t have a lot of time.’”
On Saturday, March 12th at 8:00 PM at the Vermont Jazz Center we will hear Fred Hersch’s Trio with John Hébert (bass) and Eric McPherson (drums). This trio’s first commercial recording was Whirl, which was released in 2010 and claimed by reviewer Thom Jurek to be “among the most celebratory and energetically intimate records in Hersch’s large catalog.” Six years later, this trio continues to create music at the highest level – music that has evolved to the point where they have created a subtle form of communication that appears to be a form of extrasensory perception. Fred once stated that “jazz music, by its very nature, is intimate. You’re trusting other people — there’s an intensity and shared emotion of creating something together.” To experience that intimacy as a listener is a gift, to be in the presence of masters who’ve been perfecting their communication for years can be a spiritual experience.
New Orleans-born John Hébert is one of the busiest bassists in NYC. Along with his work with Fred Hersch and his numerous projects as a leader he has participated in over 150 recording projects including those by Mary Halvorson, Adam Kolker, Uri Caine, Duane Eubanks, Mike Holober, Steve Lehman, Frank Carlberg, Andrew Rathbun, Peter Eldridge, Jon Irabagon and Andrew Hill.
Drummer Eric McPherson, also in New York’s top echelon, mentored under Jackie McLean at Hartt School of Music and, as a student, was asked to join his band. He has performed or recorded with Abraham Burton, Andrew Hill, Pharoah Sanders, Richard Davis, Claudia Acuña, Avishai Cohen, Kurt Rosenwinkle, Jason Moran, Greg Osby. Luis Perdomo, Charnett Moffett, Jimmy Greene, Myron Walden, Steve Davis and many others.
Come find out why Fred Hersch has been nominated for 8 Grammy Awards and is proclaimed by Vanity Fair to be “the most arrestingly innovative pianist in jazz over the last decade.” Listen to him with Hébert and McPherson as they reinvent their expected functions within the context of the jazz piano trio. This is indeed an amazing opportunity and the concert will almost certainly sell out. The Fred Hersch Trio will perform at the Vermont Jazz Center on Saturday, March 12th at 8:00 PM. The VJC is especially grateful for sponsorship from a “friend of the VJC’s Summer Jazz Workshop” as well as ongoing support from the Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. Hospitality for our artists is provided by the Hampton Inn of Brattleboro. VJC publicity is underwritten by the Brattleboro Reformer, WVPR, WVEW and WFCR.
Tickets for the Fred Hersch Quartet are $20+ general admission, $15 for students with I.D. (contact VJC about educational discounts); available at In the Moment in Brattleboro, or online at www.vtjazz.org, or by email at ginger@vtjazz.org. Tickets can also be reserved by calling the Vermont Jazz Center ticket line, 802-254-9088, ext. 1. Handicapped access is available by calling the VJC at 802 254 9088.
There’s nothing better than feeling like you played a great set or a great concert. Now, the next night or the next time that you play the chalkboard is erased and you start again – and if you get attached to the memory of that great concert that you played you’re not going to be able to play the next one. You have to kind of say, “that was great, now I’m going to start fresh.”
Fred Hersch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnpZZuJDslM Fred Hersch Trio – Whirl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dianRYQMK8U Solo – Con Alma
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw58HK3GYAg Solo – In Walked Bud
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL9zmiz3Glw solo – The Song is You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q79g6nYgk7E in 1980 with trumpeter Art Farmer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly9QWRVb_TM Trailer to “The Lives of Fred Hersch”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vdbh2ui6Dtk with Trio 2013 Iowa City Jazz Fest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KTBTcu9Fww “Hear What Happens Next” Short Documentary
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128976314 Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1rfucGW790 Fred Hersch – Narrative Medicine Rounds (Feb. 2012) Explains living with HIV AIDS.