Internationally
acclaimed jazz pianist and composer Fred Hersch has received two 2015 Grammy
nominations for the Fred Hersch Trio's recent Palmetto Records CD Floating.
Hersch has been nominated in the categories of Best Jazz Instrumental Album and
Best Improvised Jazz Solo (You & The Night Music, Fred Hersch, soloist).
The Grammy Awards ceremony will take place in Los Angeles on Sunday, February
8, 2015.
Hersch
earned six previous Grammy nominations between 1993 and 2013, in the categories
of Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Best Instrumental Composition and Best
Improvised Jazz Solo.
Floating
featuring Hersch with his trio of bassist John Hébert and drummer Eric
McPherson, has earned wide critical acclaim.
"Mr.
Hersch has been making acclaimed trio releases since his debut album as a
leader, 30 years ago. He hasn't made one better than this...an extravagantly
beautiful new album. The diversity of
mood and color in these songs - and they do pass muster as songs, with strong
melody and sensible design - is a boon to Mr. Hersch and his partners, who keep
finding new routes of expression within the music. Mr. Hersch, with his fluent
exposition, his rapturous clarity and his elegant assurance of touch, leads the
way." - Nate Chinen, The New York Times
"As
gifted younger pianists crowd the scene, Hersch, who is in his late fifties, is
easing into the role of grand master with the elegance of an experienced player
at the top of his game." ¬- Steve Futterman, The New Yorker
"Fred
Hersch is a jazz pianist. But to qualify him as a "jazz pianist" is
to reduce his large and profound skill set. More than simply a musician, Hersch
uses his life as material for his music, thus giving his albums and concerts
the feeling of some great project.
Hersch plays with a beautiful touch and a rare broad-ranging gift for
melody, but also a unique forward motion. Floating is a gift." - Ken Micallef,
NYC Jazz Record
"The
trio led by pianist Fred Hersch is one of the most malleable, graceful, and
exciting working bands in jazz." -
Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader
Praised
in a New York Times Sunday Magazine feature as "singular among the
trailblazers of their art, a largely unsung innovator of this borderless,
individualistic jazz-a jazz for the 21st century," Fred Hersch balances
his internationally recognized instrumental and composing skills with
significant achievements as a bandleader, collaborator and theatrical
conceptualist.
Hersch -
who as leader or co-leader has over three dozen albums to his name - has
featured himself as either a solo performer or at the helm of varied small
ensembles, which in addition to his celebrated trio, include a quintet, and his
unconventional Pocket Orchestra. Hersch has also collaborated with an
astonishing range of instrumentalists and vocalists throughout worlds of jazz
(Joe Henderson, Charlie Haden, Art Farmer, Stan Getz and Bill Frisell);
classical (Renée Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, Christopher O'Riley); and Broadway
(Audra McDonald). Long admired for his sympathetic work with singers, Hersch
has joined with such notable jazz vocalists as Nancy King, Norma Winstone and
Kurt Elling.
In 2006
Hersch became the first artist in the 75-year history of New York's legendary
Village Vanguard to play a weeklong engagement as a solo pianist. His 2011
release, Alone at the Vanguard received Grammy Award nominations for Best Jazz
Album and Best Improvised Jazz Solo. In 2014, Hersch garnered his sixth Grammy
nomination for his solo on "Duet" from Free Flying, a duo album with
guitarist Julian Lage that received a rare 5-star rating from DownBeat.
In 2003
Hersch created Leaves of Grass (Palmetto Records), a large-scale setting of
Walt Whitman's poetry for voices (Kurt Elling and Kate McGarry) and an
instrumental octet; the work was presented to a sold-out Zankel Hall at
Carnegie Hall in 2005. His acclaimed 2010 theatrical project, My Coma Dreams (based
on imaginings Hersch had during a two-month coma), is a full-evening work for
an actor/singer, 11 instrumentalists and animation/multimedia; it has just been
released on DVD on Palmetto in honor of World AIDS Day, December 1st. A disc of
his through-composed works, Fred Hersch: Concert Music 2001-2006, has been
released by Naxos Records. He was the recipient of a 2003 Guggenheim Memorial
Fellowship in Music Composition among his many awards and honors.
For two
decades Hersch has been a passionate spokesman and fund-raiser for AIDS
services and education agencies. He has produced and performed on benefit
recordings and in numerous concerts for charities, including Classical Action:
Performing Arts Against AIDS and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. He has also
been a keynote speaker and performer at international medical conferences in
the U.S. and Europe.
He is
currently a member of the Jazz Studies faculty of New England Conservatory and
of Rutgers University. Hersch's influence has been widely felt on a new
generation of jazz pianists, from former students Brad Mehldau and Ethan
Iverson to his colleague Jason Moran, who has said, "Fred at the piano is
like LeBron James on the basketball court. He's perfection."
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