Maybe it's his sober, college-don appearance, or his New England Conservatory schooling, but the Cincinnati-born pianist Fred Hersch projects serious and cerebral musical expectations. His work, however, though it has sometimes tended to the prolix, has mostly been a lot more lyrical and accessible.
As with Brad Mehldau, Hersch can be an absolutely engrossing musical storyteller, hardly ever sounding like a man simply reshuffling scales over chords. But he's also a very fine composer, and this set, adding the trumpeter Ralph Alessi and saxophonist Tony Malaby to his core trio with bassist Drew Gress and masterly drummer Nasheet Waits, is an admirable balance of strong originals and adventurous variations.
All the pieces are Hersch's, apart from Lennon and McCartney's And I Love Her - which keeps the structure of that poignant ballad faithfully, save for the odd altered chord, and is a model of Hersch improvising delicacy coupled with underplayed conversing between the horns to insinuate the tune.
The clamorous, faintly McCoy Tyner-like A Riddle Song displays Hersch's solo development perfectly, from fragmentary early elements to a long legato central section in which he always seems to be pushing the climax a little further out of reach, over Nasheet Waits's fiercely intricate yet elemental drumming. Black Dog Pays a Visit is a fraught, rising-and-falling melody that sounds like a restless search for sleep. It features another dazzlingly resourceful Hersch solo, closer to the way Mehldau would have handled it.
Trumpeter Ralph Alessi deftly catches the ethereal, Kenny Wheeler touch Hersch is after on A Lark, and a hint of a New Orleans ensemble sound mingles with the country tinge on the Bill Frisell dedication Down Home. There are barely struck musings high in the treble register set against Tony Malaby's smoky low tenor sound on Rain Waltz, a strong Bill Evans throwback on Marshall's Plan and a busy doodle of breathily wriggling, boppish lines on the Lee Konitz tribute Lee's Dream. Very varied, intelligently conceived contemporary material with a lot of old jazz virtues in it, and played right at the edge of the envelope. - John Fordham
Tracks
01. A Riddle Song
02. And I Love Her (Lennon/McCartney)
03. Miss B.
04. Black Dog Pays A Visit
05. A Lark
06. Down Home
07. Rain Waltz
08. Marshall's Plan
09. Lee's Dream
10. The Chase
DREW GRESS bass
NASHEET WAITS drums
FRED HERSCH piano
TONY MALABY tenor saxophone
RALPH ALESSI trumpet, flugelhorn
All music composed by Fred Hersch, except (2) by Lennon & McCartney
Recorded September 22, 2003 at Maggie's Farm
Palmetto Records - PM 2099