ECM Releases Fred Hersch’s Latest Solo Album

courtesy of DL Media Music

According to my records, my last account of an album of performances by jazz pianist Fred Hersch appeared on this site at the very end of 2022; and it involved the recording of his performances with esperanza spalding at the Village Vanguard on October 19, 20, and 21 of 2018. The end of last week saw the release of Silent, Listening, his latest solo album with ECM based on recordings made in Lugano in May of 2023. This album serves up seven new original works, one of which (as might be expected) bears the title of the album. The other tracks include “The Star-Crossed Lovers” (also known as “Pretty Girl”), composed jointly by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, Russ Freeman’s “The Wind,” “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise” by Sigmund Romberg, and Alec Wilder’s “The Winter of My Discontent.”

The advance material for this album cited Hersch’s “in-the-moment spontaneity.” This applies to his interpretations of the composed selections as much as it does to the tracks of the originals. Indeed, it would not surprise me to learn that none of those originals were documented in notation; and, when the polyphony gets thick (as it often does), I wonder if anyone would be skilled enough to transcribe such a document.

Over the course of my many years of listening to Hersch albums, the musicologist in me has finally given way to the in-the-moment listener. In other words, rather like a photograph, any Hersch track amounts to a “snapshot” of how he chose to be making music at a particular time. Were he to perform the piece again at a later time, aspects of the tune may still be there; but, in all probability, the “snapshot” would not be identical. In that respect I regret not having had more opportunities to listen to Hersch in performance, allowing me to appreciate such in-the-moment listening to a greater extent.

Absent those opportunities, I have found that, each time I listen to a recording, I discover new perspectives emerging from each of the album tracks, meaning that this new Silent, Listening album allows for in-the-moment experiences of its own with each subsequent encounter.