a few words about the selections:
You're My Everything is by one of my favorite Broadway and Hollywood film composers, Harry Warren, this track is dedicated with love to Scott Morgan.
I wrote Snow Is Falling... just a couple of weeks before the recording as the snow came down outside the window of our getaway in the Pennsylvania woods.
The week before we recorded this cd. I played a week at the Village Vanguard with bassist Drew Gress and legendary drummer Paul Motian. I learned Blue Midnight, a lovely tune by Paul. For the gig and it just seemed to fit in beautifully with the rest of the material on this disc.
Skipping was written for a week at the vanguard in 2009 with my trio +2. it has some mixed meters in it and is both challenging and fun to play.
Mandevilla is a habanera and is named after a brazilian jasmine vine.
A.E. Swan's When Your Lover Has Gone was a hit for Louis Armstrong but today it is a neglected gem.
I dedicated Whirl to the great ballerina Suzanne Farrell. I had the great pleasure of seeing her dance many times with the New York. City Ballet, she was absolute perfection in every way and this piece takes its rhythm from her spinning en pointe.
Sad Poet is another dedication: to Antonio Carlos Jobim. I have played his music throug my career, and I hope that this composition captures some of his spirit.
I studied with the great pianist Jaki Byard at the New England Conservatory in the mid 1970's. He was a larger-than-life character and was a true encyclopedia of jazz piano as well as an underrated composer. This quirky blues is dedicated to Charlie Parker's mother.
Still Here is for Wayne Shorter, one of my strongest influences. He, at 75, is still vibrant, active and composing music of depth, originality and beauty - a real inspiration for all of us. - Fred Hersch
A couple of weeks before the release of Whirl, Fred Hersch was the subject of a long and chilling New York Times Magazine piece by David Hadju. The article related that in late 2008 Hersch, who has suffered from HIV/AIDS-related illnesses for years, had been experiencing symptoms that gradually took his motor functions away -- he became delusional; he couldn't swallow, eat, or drink; and he fell into a coma and began to experience the shutting down of his vital organs. Miraculously, he somehow survived. Apparently, Hersch wasn't ready to die or to stop making music, and Whirl is the evidence, his first recording since recovering from his illness, issued on Palmetto and featuring bassist John HÈbert and drummer Eric McPherson. The ten tunes on offer here reflect in Hersch something that, while altogether him (his lyric style is always immediately recognizable), is also more open, less formal, and even more adventurous in terms of tune selection, composition, and improvisation. The three cover tunes include a sprightly, involved reading of Jaki Byard's "Mrs. Parker of K.C." Hersch plays the arpeggios sparklingly clean, and yet allows the funkiness in Byard's knotty melody to shine right through them. His solo reflects elements of his former teacher's iconoclastic language while never allowing his own style to be subsumed. Harry Warren's "You're My Everything" reveals Hersch's elegance without excess. The loose swing of his collaborators gives him room to play with "singing" flourishes in the melody and in his solo. "Mandevilla" is a habanera played with restraint and a very conscious use of its rhythmic implications, playing the melody right through the center without using anything extra, though it is full and beautiful. The title track, dedicated to ballet dancer Suzanne Ferrell, is -- as its title suggests -- a flight of fancy yet deeply focused in its leaps and bounds in modes, meters, and harmonic invention. While there are some wonderful ballads here as well -- "Sad Poet" dedicated to Antonio Carlos Jobim, a reading of the forgotten nugget "When Your Lover Has Gone" -- there isn't anything on Whirl that suggests sorrow or caution. If anything, this is among the most most celebratory and energetically intimate records in Hersch's large catalog. - Thom Jurek
Así de pronto no parece que Whirltenga nada especialmente novedoso: Hersch ha grabado a menudo en trío, y este en particular no resulta, en principio, especialmente llamativo. Pronto los chicos se encargan de barrer esas tontas consideraciones: el nuevo disco de Fred Hersch suena como un cañón. Es quizá menos contundente que otros suyos (tampoco es que este hombre se caracterice por su contundencia) pero lo inflaman una interacción finísima entre los músicos, un flujo musical constante y vivo y una reacción inmediata de unos a lo que tocan los otros.
Asombra especialmente, en ese sentido, la labor del batería Eric McPherson: impone un pulso rítmico en permanente mutación, inasible y perfectamente comprensible. Pero tampoco el contrabajista John Hébert se resigna a una labor de meros anclaje rítmico y armónico… su trabajo aporta libertad, espesura y matizadas miradas tangentes que reubican continuamente la música del trío. Y Hersch deja fluir sin trabas aparentes el caudaloso flujo de su creatividad: aún siendo la de Whirl música tan dialogada, está claro que el objetivo de Hébert y McPherson es en todo momento acicatear y dar soporte al talento expresivo del pianista, que raya en esta ocasión a un nivel casi demasiado ansioso… como si estuviese volcando en la grabación todo lo que no pudo durante largos meses.
Así, un swing leve permea You’re My Everything y Mandevilla mientras Hersch se deja llevar por su incontenible torbellino improvisatorio; el acento un puntito oscuro de Snow Is Falling se ve constantemente sacudido por la espesa tensión emocional que tan vigorosamente manejan los músicos; When Your Lover Has Gone es una balada ligeramente lúgubre que va tomando aire conforme avanza; «Whirl» nos sopla un vientecillo fresco en el rostro, y un ritmo vivo e inquisitivo; la hermosa melodía de Sad Poet, de lenta cadencia, va cobrando intensidad lenta pero enérgicamente; Mrs. Parker Of K.C. es uno de esos blues extraños que de vez en cuando regala Hersch…
«Whirl» se desliza de cabo a rabo con suavidad, desviando su rumbo ligeramente a cada nuevo tema sin perder un ápice de su homogénea compacidad. Still Here, el corte que lo cierra, está dedicado a Wayne Shorter pero es inevitable ver en la vigorosa improvisación de Hersch la orgullosa afirmación de su reciente y casi milagrosa recuperación. Esta grabación da cumplida fe de ella, y supone un nuevo triunfo artístico de uno de los músicos más brillantes de la actualidad. - Ricardo Arribas / http://www.jazzitis.com
Tracks
01. You're My Everything (Harry Warren)
02. Snow Is Falling... (Fred Hersch)
03. Blue Midnight (Paul Motian)
04. Skipping (Fred Hersch)
05. Mandevilla (Fred Hersch)
06. When Your Lover Has Gone Swan 5:15
07. Whirl (Fred Hersch)
08. Sad Poet (Fred Hersch)
09. Mrs. Parker of K.C. (Jaki Byard)
10. Still Here (Fred Hersch)
FRED HERSCH piano
JOHN HÈBERT bass
ERIC McPHERSON drums
Recorded January 2010
Palmetto Records - PM 2143