Fred Hersch — Silent, Listening
Qobuz new release review (April 2024)
Since the late 1970s, Fred Hersch has built a career as one of jazz’s premier pianists, bringing a lush, vivid energy to the instrument with a playing style that is highly lyrical and technically innovative. This approach has brought him enormous respect within the jazz community, and also — unbelievably — earned him the somewhat ignominious status as one of the top Grammy nominees (17 times) with absolutely zero wins. All things being fair, Silent, Listening should put an end to that streak. While Hersch is renowned as an accompanist, collaborator, and group leader, it’s the solo recordings that truly showcase his genius, and Silent, Listening is his best solo piano album since 2010’s landmark Alone at the Vanguard. While Vanguardcaptured the final set of a week-long stand, Silent was recorded in the empty Auditorio Stello Molo in Lugano, Switzerland. Immaculately recorded as per ECM’s typical standards, Silent, Listening captures a vast range of Hersch’s style, from the delicate melodicism he imparts upon the Ellington/Strayhorn standard “Star-Crossed Lovers” to the complementary but daring “Night Tide Light” which immediately follows it. Throughout Silent, Hersch toys with the delta between composition and improvisation, giving the album a free-flowing energy. Exploratory numbers like his original “The Winter of My Discontent” nestle comfortably next to subtly tweaked classics like “Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise,” giving the pianist plenty of room to work his magic. He tips the scale notably toward the improvisation side, indulging the dynamics that emerge from contrasting dense clusters of notes with pensive open-endedness on songs like “Akrasia” and “Little Song” (the latter of which was written for a duo with Enrico Rava). Hersch is certainly not wandering into Cecil Taylor territory but easily shows throughout the album that he’s still able to find new possibilities on the piano.
