Fred Hersch

Silent, Listening

ECM

Like Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Craig Taborn, Paul Bley and several others, Fred Hersch now adds his name to the vast solo piano catalog of ECM, with Silent, Listening. His is a mix of composition and improvisation with originals and a few standards as well. Hersch was inspired by his ECM duet album with Enrico Rava, The Song Is You, and vowed to return to the same studio in Lugano, Switzerland to record under the auspices of ECM head Manfred Eichner.  The album certainly lives up to its title with mostly meditative material. Hirsch brought along a list of things he wanted to play and snippets with which to launch improvisation. The standards, however, just occurred spontaneously, as did the album on a whole.

His first original “Night Tide Light” begins with single, ringing notes and commences with chords and single notes in suspenseful soundscape, conducive to all sorts of imagined visual images. Like so many of the ECM recordings, space becomes paramount, in effect the duet partner.  You’ll hear percussive sounds in addition to the piano in some passages as Hersch plays inside the piano on “Akrasia.” Its title means ‘acting against one’s better interests,’ harkening to the lockdown when he confesses to spending too much time with detective novels and computer games. In the process of recording what was intended to be a lengthy piece (only 4:15 in this version), as he began recording it,  he soon realized that the music was on the floor where he couldn’t see it. Thus, most of what transpires is improvised. It’s beautiful too. “Silent, Listening” and perhaps “Aeon” are examples of written material at the beginning and end with Hersch improvising the middle sections. The slowly building, glistening “Starlight” is another aptly named piece and has an unhurried masterful use of dynamics with a very deliberate selection of single notes and chords. “Little Song” was originally written for the duo album with Rava and fits right into the trance-like inducing repertoire.

A couple of titles owe to Robert Rauschenberg’s (1925-2008) work. ”Volon” references the 1971 cardboard artwork of the world-famous visual artist.  “Aeon” is a machine pivotal in the assembling of the set design for dance choreographer Merce Cunningham’s work Aeon. Other titles have references to Shakespeare with “Star-Crossed Lovers” and “Winter Of My Discontent,” the latter a perfect closer in symmetry to the former as opener.

The feel of the album remains remarkably consistent through these standards too. The opener is Ellington and Strayhorn’s “Star-Crossed Lovers” where Hirsch first establishes this hauntingly beautiful soundscape. “The Winter of My Discontent” is a staple of Hersch’s in duo and trio settings and is one of those ‘in the moment’ instances where he felt the mood of this recording lent itself well to it. While one can’t ascribe the term “swinging” to any of these, “Softly As in a Morning Sunrise” comes closest, revealing familiar strains of the oft covered tune, Hirsch most inspired by Sonny Rollins’ version that appeared on the landmark Sonny Rollins at the Village Vanguard.  Another cover, not a standard, is Russ Freeman’s “The Wind,” the lengthiest track at seven minutes. Here Hirsch surprised himself by deconstructing the melody but building, again with an acute sense of dynamics, several dramatic and ultimately indelible sequences.

Hirsch is gentle, thoughtful, and unhurried throughout. Find your own quiet space and let your mind drift off to dreamy places. This sublimely gorgeous rendering is indeed the kind that could only occur once. Hirsch was in a special ‘zone.’

• Jim Hynes

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