Fred Hersch

Fred Hersch – Personal Favorites (2006) MCH SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

SACD / DSD By admin · February 6, 2023 · Comments off

Fred Hersch is an American jazz pianist and educator. He has performed solo and led his own groups, including the Pocket Orchestra consisting of piano, trumpet, voice, and percussion. He was the first person to play weeklong engagements as a solo pianist at the Village Vanguard in New York City. He has recorded more than 70 of his jazz compositions. Hersch has been nominated for several Grammy Awards. This compilation of celebrated pianist’s best-loved recordings for Chesky culls material from three discs-1991’s Forward Motion, 1993’s Dancing in the Dark and 1994’s The Fred Hersch Trio Plays.

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Fred Hersch & Jay Clayton – Beautiful Love (Remastered) (1995/2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · February 6, 2023 · Comments off

Jay Clayton has been a leader in applying avant-garde, creative modern techniques to the art of jazz vocal. She has been successful in this commendable objective ever since her first album as a solist in 1980, where a 25-year-old Jane Ira Bloom was a major partner. Although working with a play list of classic standards, except for Wayne Shorter’s jazz standard “Footprints,” Clayton has by no means set aside her modern jazz vocal leanings. Joined by Fred Hersch a pianist with like perspectives, they work in tandem to present this familiar music in an offbeat non-familiar way. This is not to say that lovely melody lines are lost among cacophonies of grunts, groans, and other extra terrestrial events. The lyrical lines are there, but the tempo, the phrasing, the emphasis has been rearranged so the light of these tunes is refracted through a prism rather than through a window of ordinary glass. Full fledged avant-garde comes, as one would expect, on Shorter’s “Footprints,” where Clayton engages in wordless vocalizing reminiscent of the vocal part in Hector Villa-Lobas “Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5,” with Hersch doing a marvelous job replacing the cellos as the voice accompaniment. This is seven minutes of remarkable virtuosity. “Regular” standards, such as “Blame It on My Youth,” are treated with respect as Clayton plays little games with the melody line and chordal structure and inserts wordless vocalizing here and there. “Beautiful Love” is introduced slowly by Clayton a cappella before moving into a medium lilting tempo. Not much here ever gets beyond that pace. This album is thoughtful and is for those who want to hear the full measure of a song, with nothing skipped, casually dismissed, or unknowingly overlooked.

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Fred Hersch – Open Book (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · February 6, 2023 · Comments off

Less noisy than Keith Jarrett and less famous than Brad Mehldau (who was his pupil, after all), Fred Hersch is a “jazz” pianist who is all the same very precious: a musician whose every album holds gems of improvisation, and moments of grace. His works have become all the more intense of the the last few years, as they have found themselves shoved into the spotlight of the life of a committed artist. In 2008, this life was almost brought to a premature end. Having contracted AIDS, Hersch spent two months in a coma from which he emerged miraculously. There followed long weeks in which he re-learned the piano, and then, years later, he wrote a piece, My Coma Dreams, on the porous border between dream and reality. Several other albums followed. Playing solo, in a trio, in a duet… this album, brought out in September 2017, is a totally solo work. This is his eleventh solo work, that mixes his own music with works by others (Whisper Not by Benny Golson, Eronel by Monk, Zingaro by Antonip Carlos Jobim and even, more surprising, And So It Goes by Billy Joel!). Those who know Fred Hersch are hardly surprised by the intelligence of his jazz. Nor by his faculty for turning so many phrases of such beauty. Those who don’t can take a look in this Open Book, and get their herschian education started as soon as possible…

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Fred Hersch – Begin Again (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · February 6, 2023 · Comments off

After a brilliant series of trio and solo projects, Fred Hersch has coupled up his piano with a big band; the Cologne-based WDR Big Band, to be precise. His fellow American Vince Mendoza both conducts and arranges all 9 of Hersch’s original compositions, cherry-picked from his vast repertoire. The pieces are impeccably orchestrated by Mendoza, who juggles energy and refinement, eruptions and discretion, and offers up a colour palette with a thousand beautiful shades. Taking the legacies of Duke Ellington and Gil Evans in completely new directions, the real strength of this album lies in its variety. The soloists’ precision is also outstanding: alto saxophonists Johan Hörlén and Karolina Strassmayer, tenor saxophonist Paul Heller, trumpeters Ruud Breuls and Andy Haderer, trombonists Ludwig Nuss and Andy Hunter and drummer Hans Dekker all embark on meticulous solos. The ocean of music renders Fred Hersch’s playing even more weightless than usual, the pianist being accustomed to space and silence. He is never swamped by the big band, instead injecting energy and enthusiasm into the work. A true wonder. – Marc Zisman

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Fred Hersch – Breath by Breath (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · February 4, 2023 · Comments off

Fred Hersch - Breath by Breath (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Iconic pianist/composer Fred Hersch was an early adopter of new technologies and new ways forward when the pandemic hit in early 2020. But he’s also been among the most eager to return to live performance and collaboration now that life has begun to resume some semblance of normality. In August 2021 he returned to the studio to record one of his most ambitious projects to date: Breath By Breath, his first album ever pairing jazz rhythm section with string quartet. Breath By Breath draws inspiration from the pianist’s longtime practice of mindfulness meditation, centered on the new eight-movement “Sati Suite.” But while the album is certainly contemplative and lustrous, it’s far from being merely an ambient backdrop for blissful relaxation – the music here is as fully engaged and emotionally rich as any that Hersch has made over the course of his remarkable career.
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Fred Hersch & Esperanza Spalding – Alive at the Village Vanguard (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · January 21, 2023 · Comments off

The 2023 album of the internationally acclaimed jazz pianist and composer Fred Hersch, who has already won major awards, together in a duet with the exceptional artist Esperanza Spalding, who has been awarded in the Grammy category “Best New Artist”, among others.

“Alive At The Village Vanguard” combines high class artistry of both to create an authentic and profound work between Jazz and Neo Soul live from the legendary venue. Released as a CD on Palmetto Records. born in Ohio in 1955, Hersch began playing the piano at the age of only four and showed such great talent that he was awarded a scholarship to the prestigious New England Conservatory of Music in his teens, from which he graduated in 1977 with the best possible grades. He then moved to New York, where he quickly became an extremely sought-after pianist through early collaborations with greats such as Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, Jane Ira Bloom, Toots Thielemans and Gary Burton, and developed the impressionistic style between classical jazz, improvisation and classical music that still characterizes him today. The Portland-born multi-instrumentalist Esperanza Spalding also showed great musical talent at an early age, learning violin, double bass and singing

Already active as a concertmaster at the age of 15, she became the youngest professor at Berklee at only 20 and has worked with artists such as Pat Metheny, Stanley Clarke, Mike Stern and Patti Austin to this day. In addition to winning countless critics’ awards and five solo Grammy Awards, Spalding has played with Steve Wonder at the White House. Among the most important and recognized artists of modern jazz, Fred Hersch and Esperanza Spalding will be part of the renowned “Alive At The Village Vanguard” series, in which two exceptional artists are always invited to play an unforgettable concert at the legendary Village Vanguard.

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Enrico Rava, Fred Hersch – The Song Is You (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · October 19, 2022 · Comments off

Their collaboration has been hailed as a summit meeting of two jazz masters – Enrico Rava, trumpeter from Trieste, and Fred Hersch, pianist from Cincinatti, share a deep affection for the tradition and a profound sense for melodic invention.

In this recording, with flugelhorn and piano glowing in the superb acoustic of the Lugano studio, Rava and Hersch explore some much-loved standards: Jerome Kern’s “The Song Is You”, Thelonious Monk’s “Mysterioso” and “‘Round Midnight”, Jobim’s “Retrato em Branco e Preto”, and George Bassman’s “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You”. They also play their own tunes, Fred’s “Child’s Song” and Enrico’s “The Trial”, and improvise freely together.

Enrico Rava has been an ECM artist for almost fifty years. The Song Is You is Fred Hersch’s first for the label. The album was recorded at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI in November 2021, and produced by Manfred Eicher.

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Nico Gori & Fred Hersch – Da Vinci (2012) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · November 14, 2016 · Comments off

The duo offers the most intimate dialogue between two musicians: a time when each musician himself up, and dig deep inside himself to express a melody inspired improvisation on the other, this is so magical. This magic has proved the first time that Nico Gori has performed with Fred Hersch. The two musicians met for the first time the North Sea Jazz Festival 2010 in Holland. Nico Gori then played with the Italian pianist Stefano Bollani and Fred Hersch Trio with her two. The two were immediately attracted by the sound of the other.

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