Floating

Description

For more than thirty years, Fred Hersch has established himself as one of the brightest jazz pianists. First as an accompanist in the shadow of Toots Thielemans, Joe Henderson and other great names, or as a mentor to Brad Mehldau and other young talents. Since the 1990s, he has performed solo and with his own group. Recorded with John Hébert on double bass and Eric McPherson on drums, musicians who have been working with him for nearly 5 years, Floating is sequenced like a concert set by the trio. A standard (here You & The Night & The Music in an Afro-Cuban version) is followed by original compositions often dedicated to acquaintances or to artists the pianist admires. Developing a New Orleans-style “second line,” Home Fries is written for his bassist from Louisiana. Esperanza Spalding is offered Arcata, a piece in which Hébert’s double bass converses with the piano, imposing a melodic counterpoint on it. Dedicated to his mother and grandmother, West Virginia Rose, solo, conveys the delicacy of his feelings. The notes become caresses, the piano nostalgic and dreamy, as in Far Away, a tribute to the Israeli pianist Shimrit Shoshan, who died at the age of 29. For in these floating rubato ballads, Fred Hersch pours himself out, lets go more, without however surrendering to chance. Like all the penultimate pieces in his concerts, If Ever I Would Leave You, an excerpt from the musical Camelot, is a ballad. Frederick Loewe wrote the music, but Hersch transcends it, renews its harmonies. He does the same in Let's Cool One, a composition by Thelonious Monk, the final track of an essential magnum opus.