This coming Friday will see the first release of a Fred Hersch album since this past January. That previous album, Breath by Breath was a major undertaking, devoted almost entirely to an eight-movement suite entitled The Sati Suite. This involved pianist Hersch leading a trio consisting of Drew Gress on bass and Jochen Rueckert on drums; and they, in turn, were joined by the members of the Crosby Street String Quartet: violinists Joyce Hammann and Laura Seaton, violist Lois Martin, and cellist Jody Redhage Ferber.
courtesy of DL Media Music
The new album, which will be released by ECM this coming Friday, is entitled The Song is You. It swings the pendulum to the other extreme. Hersch is joined only by Italian Enrico Rava playing flugelhorn. As is often the case, Amazon.com has created a Web page for processing pre-orders.
Rava has been recording for ECM since the Seventies; but this album marks Hersch’s first appearance on the label, which has made a reputation for adventurous tastes in both the jazz and classical genres. Both Hersch and Rava contribute an original composition to the track list, with another track devoted to a duo improvisation. As expected, there is also a track for the song composed by Jerome Kern after which the album is named. The other tune in that genre is George Bassman’s “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You,” which was first recorded by Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra. The opening track is Antônio Carlos Jobim’s “Retrato em Branco e Preto” (portrait in black and white); and the album concludes with two familiar tunes associated with Thelonious Monk: “Misterioso” and “’Round Midnight.”
Taken as a whole, this album captures duet playing at its most intimate. The flugelhorn has a darker sound than either the trumpet or the cornet. This makes it more suitable for the rhetoric of quietude, a rhetorical stance that is very much in Hersch’s comfort zone. Arthur Schwartz’ tune “Alone Together” comes to mind; and I was a bit surprised that it was not included among all of the Hersch tracks currently in my collection. On the other hand the duo’s approach to “Misterioso” could almost be taken as a memorial encomium to Monk himself.
From a personal point of view, I would not classify this as an “everyday listening experience” album. I doubt that I shall encounter these tracks over the course of my radio and streamed encounters with the jazz repertoire. However, on those occasions when one is inclined to introspection, these performances offer just the right context for the disposition.
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