Pianist Fred Hersch is one of the few modern artists who has what every musician craves: his own identifiable sound. He’s used it on a plethora of various sessions lately. His recent Vanguard concert recordings is only the most recent, as he’s been putting out an incredible amount of new music lately. This interview tries to recap where he’s “been” the last few years, both musically and physically.
WHAT IS YOUR ATTRACTION TO SOLO RECORDING. VERY FEW PIANISTS HAVE MADE A CAREER OF IT, MOST NOTABLY ART TATUM, EARL HINES…
Keith Jarrett’s done a few of them! And Cecil Taylor. But it does seem to be sort of a specialty of mine. I think I’ve done nine of them. I just sort of really fell into it. I’ve always been a pretty orchestral kind of player with an active left hand. I was encouraged early on when I first moved to New York by Sir Roland Hanna, who said, “You know, I think you could become a really great solo player, and you should do this.” He was a wonderful solo player. Magnificent. I hung out a lot during my formative years in New York, from 77-the mid eighties , at Bradleys which was THE piano place in the world. Every great pianist played in there. I was lucky enough to play quite a bit there myself. Mostly it was piano-based duos, but I heard literally everybody, and I played there with every bass player that you’d probably care to name.
I just really started to think that it’s about not having drums and having the freedom to be able to go from very loud, rich, thick and orchestral to very soft and innocent always attracted me. I’m a fairly melodic player, although not exclusively. I think people pin that rap on me a lot. It’s not exclusively accurate. I think through my studies with a particular teacher I’ve studied with for 30 years, I really discovered the world of sound, so I’ve made sound a real priority in my playing, and in my teaching as well. I really focus on sound, and getting sound. Of course, a solo piano is the ultimate thing, and keeping people’s attention for two one hour sets, you really need to have a variety of sound, touch and approach. I’ve just always taken it on as a challenge.
The first solo album I ever did was a “live” solo record record on the Concord Jazz Maybeck Series ( ed note-in 1993). That was kind of a sink or swim situation where basically you played a set in front of a small audience, and that the cd. There were no retakes; that was it. Now, many years later, I’ve gotten back into the “live” recordings, and I’ve done a lot of them recently. This Alone At The Vanguard release really surprised me, with two Grammy nominations, is just an example of the kind of zone that you can get into when you’re playing “live” that is very hard to achieve in the studio.
WITH HORN PLAYERS, IT SEEMS EASIER FOR THEM TO GET A DISTINCT SOUND THAN FOR A PIANO THAT DOESN’T LEND ITSELF TO A PERSONAL TONE. WHAT DO WORK ON TO SOUND UNIQUE: THE TACTILE TOUCH, THE PEDALS?
With a wind instrument, you obviously have to breath into it. You have to choose the mouthpiece, your reed, your horn and all of that kind of stuff. With the piano, the very first time I listened to jazz, I was struck by the tone of certain pianists, like early Ahmad Jamal Trio records. The one that really got to me was hearing Duke Ellington records from the 20s, the 30s the 50s, the 60s…some stereo, some mono, some live, some in studios, and he always got that great sound. I thought that there’s got to be something more to this than just pushing on the lever. So, I do work with trying to kind of get more of your body involved with making the sound than just your fingers. There are guys who have what you can call chops. They can play fast, they can play loud, they can play a lot of “stuff.” I’ve kind of taken the other approach, not that I can’t get around the piano fine. To me, it’s more important that the tone and content is there. I’m not oriented towards flash. I’m not the kind of guy that’s going to blow people away playing “Rhythm” changes at a jam session. Or a lot of stock stuff that I could trot out when I really need to.
I try to really play what’s going on at the moment, and that means that it’s sometimes better and sometimes worse. But, I’ve learned to take that chance. If you think of trumpet players, you seen an analogy with a Chet Baker or a Miles. You have that really beautiful fat sound, and they didn’t have to play a lot of notes. They played 8th notes for the most part. And then you have somebody like Woody Shaw, who was absolutely brilliant, but he had a thinner sound. So he had to make up for it. That’s why he played more notes, in a way.
YOU PLAYED WITH ART FARMER, WHO WAS THE KING OF TONE
He had a beautiful sound. I played with Joe Henderson who had an incredible sound. I played with Stan Getz who had a real incredible sound. It was a great experience. I’ve also played with some of the great singers. So, I’ve made it a point to make sound a real priority.
When I’m working with a young musician, a pianist, a lot of them have been oriented towards their fingers and the strength of their fingers, spending a lot of time with finger oriented exercises. I tell them, “Look. If you want to play loose, you’ve got to BE loose. You can’t think your way into it. You have to actually physically be loose, and physically instrumented with the instrument. So, that means, I try to get the fingers out of the chain, and more of the rest of them into the chain. Get them to hear the nuances of sound, and get their playing to feel better under their hands so that they are freer to just express themselves, and the ideas will just flow more organically.
The jazz education model says that you learn a whole bunch of stuff, and then you kind of plug it in. It also says in a subliminal message that all of the great jazz has already happened, so just transcribe it and you’ll sound good. I don’t really believe that. Whatever information you have is fine. Of course you need information about chords and substitue chords, tunes, theory and all of that kind of stuff. But, ultimately, it’s how you use it, and the using of that information is something that is often not stressed in the education. It’s more of the accumulation of information that is stressed.
I do teach; I teach at the New England Conservatory.I’ve taught there off and on for 30 years, and I’ve had a number of students who’ve become famous piano players.
YOU’VE HAD BRAD MEHLDAU AND ETHAN IVERSON AS STUDENTS IN THE PAST
Yes, and a lot of other names that you’d recognize. Those are probably the two most prominent. I’ve worked with them on a lot of this stuff. These are two talented guys, obviously, who would have had careers regardless of me. But I think that maybe I hipped them to some things that they might not have been aware of before we started working together.
WHEN YOU HEAR THEIR CURRENT PLAYING, WHAT GOES THROUGH YOUR MIND?
Different things. It’s funny, because they have such different personalities. One of the things I admire about Ethan is his stubborness. He just devised a style based on NOT being certain things. He said, “Why should I play a ballad the way you do, because you do it better than I do, so I need to find another way of playing a ballad.”
Brad was one of those kids who was just voracious. He was playing large scale classical pieces. He was kicking drugs at the time we were working together, so I also spent a lot of time with him as a mentor. I do that with my students, the ones I get close to. It’s much more than just piano lessons. Talking about all kinds of things about life. Careers, and the way we look at things. But, it was very clear that he had a big talent. I wouldn’t have tagged that he would become a superstar, buthe was one of the more…
When I look back on my teaching career of all these years, there are 5, 6-8 of them that I would call a “big talents,” and he was definitely in the “big talent” category. I teach because I learned to play in jazz clubs, when I played with great players. The students nowadays don’t have that opportunty. There’s no kind of oral tradition left, in a way. I feel like all of this great stuff was passed on to me, and that I try to should pass it on to them.
DID YOUR PREVIOUS EMPLOYERS JOE HENDERSON, STAN GETZ OR ART FARMER GIVE YOU ANY VERBAL ADVISE?
None of them talked a whole lot about music. I just learned by example. They just did it.
WHEN DID YOU FEEL LIKE YOU FINALLY GOT YOUR OWN DISTINCT SOUND?
I can listen back to my recordings of myself when I was 19 or 20 and I was kind of going for the same things that I go for now. It obviously just wasn’t as put together. I’ve always had a very active left hand and an interest in counterpoint. I can’t really pinpoint a time, but I think my playing has coalesced over a period of time. I’m always happy when people say, “I was listening to the radio and heard a piano solo,and I knew it was you.”
I really try to stay connected to the tune that I’m playing. I choose tunes that I think either stretch me or fit me well. I compose a great deal, and a lot of what I play are my tunes, so that’s a part of it too; it’s also a further extension of my esthetic. Who I am and where I come from is in what I write, whether it’s a large scale project or tunes or things in between or things that are through-composed that a classical pianist could play. I’m always looking to express myself in different ways.
DO YOU CONSCIOUSLY LOOK FOR DIFFERENT WAYS OF PERFORMING AND COMPOSING? IS THAT WHY YOU PERFORMED WITH A KURT ELLING OR A RENEE FLEMING, TO EXERCISE A DIFFERENT PART OF YOUR BRAIN?
With Kurt, I devised this piece Leaves Of Grass. Kurt and I had known each other socially for eons, but I wrote a large scale setting of Walt Whitman’s Leaves Of Grass with Kurt in mind. He sang it, we recorded it 10-12 times and then we recorded it. That was sort of our first working thing together. We’ve done duo concerts since. Renee was just a fan. She used to come to The Vanguard, and we had an opportunity to play a benefit event together. We worked up a repetoire, and then thought “let’s do an album together.”I think things just work out a lot of times organically.
IS THAT WHAT HAPPENED WITH YOUR LATEST PROJECT, THE PLAY “MY COMA DREAMS”?
No, that was a musical theatre singer, Michael Winther. It’s very obviously the most personal thing I’ve ever done, and we’re hopeful that more and more p eople will be able to see it. It’s expensive to produce and kind of a big deal with these giant video images, quite a number of musicians and tech people. But, there’s a great deal of interest in this, and has there been in my story of my health, my recovery and all of the things that have happened to me in the last few years.
I felt that once again I was handed this opportunity to do something. I had these amazing dreams that I remembered (while in a coma), so I wanted to create something. I have to say that it’s been very successful and that people have found it very moving, and we just hope more people get to see it. A lot of major presenters are considering it, but it is an expensive thing to do, and requires a lot of logistics. I do think that it will continue to have a life.
Among the many other things that I’m doing right now, I’m focused on trio playing. The trio that I played with on my last recording (Whirl) which has John He’bert on bass and Eric McPherson on drums, is going to be doing a live album at the Vanguard in January for release in September. We just spent a month together in Europe, and I felt really good with this band. It’s really the fifth trio that I’ve had, and I think it’s good for where I’m at right now. I enjoy playing with these guys; it’s a nice hang. We have a good time on the road. Fortunately with guys like that, who are main sidemen now in New York, coordinating tours with them is now difficult. I was on the phone with John yesterday, trying to work out something for Europe in the fall, and he’s already booked. So, I have to have 2-3 bass players in the bullpen who know my music, who I can go down the song list and say, “I’ve got this tour; can you hold these two weeks for me?”
Then, when I’m finished with this trio project I’ll turn to something else. Kurt Elling and this young guitarist Julian Lage and I are trying to put together an evening of my setting of poems that Kurt and I both like. We’re both poetry nuts, so we’re trying to have a pocket-sized group that we can take around and do some of that. So, I always have projects.
YOU EARLIER MENTIONED ABOUT YOUR RECOVERY FROM THE AFFECTS OF AIDS. ARE YOU RECOVERING? RECOVERED? WHAT IS YOUR STATUS RIGHT NOW?
I’m 100% better off clinically than I’ve been in about 15 years. I was in a coma for two months, and after that coma I permanently lost the use of my right vocal chord. I couldn’t walk; I couldn’t eat for 8 months because I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t play the piano; I couldn’t do ANYTHING. I was completely helpless, so the fact that I’m trotting off to Europe for a month and making record after record and running back and forth to Boston to teach every couple of weeks, I definitely back “on it” with a vengeance. I’m extremely lucky that I’ve recovered the use of my fine motor skills which are needed for piano playing, and that my clinical numbers are very good, and that I have tons of energy to do what I need to do. It’s all really rather miraculous, and I don’t use that word to be flippant. I think it’s really a miracle.
DO YOU THINK THE RECOVERY CAME THROUGH SOME MEDICINE? WAS SOMEONE PRAYING FOR YOU?
It’s a lot of physical therapy, a lot of swallowing therapy, and an incredible partner along with great medical care. Certain medicines have come out at different times just as I’ve needed them. I’ve been dealing with HIV-AIDS for more than a quarter of a century, so I’m no stranger to lots of pills every day and being hospitalized a number of times, but this was at a whole other level. I nearly died; if I had gone to the hospital 6-8 hours later, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now.
I was unfortunate in that I had a pneumonia that was not treated quickly enough, but I was fortunate that they were able to save my life. That pneumonia that knocked me down and put me in the coma had nothing to do with AIDS; it was just a really bad pneumonia that went undiagnosed. By the time I got into the hospital, I was in septic shock and in danger of death. It was quite an odyssey; but I feel that I’m continually gaining strength, and actually my playing is better after the recovery and coma than it was before. I think there is a looseness and freedom to it that there may not have been there before, but that’s for the critics to decide.
HAS THIS WHOLE EPISODE CHANGED YOUR OUTLOOK TO THE SPIRITUAL SIDE OF LIFE? HAS YOUR VIEW ON GOD, OR YOURSELF CHANGED THROUGH THIS WHOLE ORDEAL AND RECOVERY?
Philosophically, what I practice is Insight Meditation, which is essentially an Americanized version of Buddhism. So, I’m a meditator; I’ve been lapsed lately, but I’ve done it for a long time. It has to do partially with awareness and acceptance. But, I’m not religious in a Jewish or Catholic sense. And, the whole idea of spirituality, I don’t quite go there either. Insight Meditation for me is grounded in something real; it’s spending time with yourself in a good way once a day, and learning how to be more aware of who you are and how you effect people and how it affects yourself. That’s been a big help.
WHEN YOU FACE DEATH IN THE EYE, YOU SEE THE WORLD AND YOURSELF DIFFERENTLY
Exactly. As I’ve said, the only souvenier I have is a non-working vocal chord corrected bya rather amazing surgery, and a hole in my stomach, just a scar where the feeding tube was for 8 months. That’s really kind of about it, when I consider that I was so far down, it’s remarkable that those are the only sourveniers. It’s pretty amazing.
I’ve learned that I can be very patient. I wasn’t sure of my ability to be patient before all of this. But, when you’re actually helpless, without being able to speak, laying in a bed in a patient recovery center; you can’t talk and get help, you’re incontinent, I learned that I had to be incredibly patient. I’d have with me the idea that “maybe you will be able to swallow again, and maybe you’re not. Maybe you’ll eat solid food someday, and maybe you won’t.” All of these things are what we take for granted. Who thinks about swallowing?
There are a lot of things we really take for granted in our lives, and I don’t do that any longer. Good things like health, good energy, an appetite, good clinical numbers. I had a condition called xerostomia which is a lack of salivation, so for a time eating a sandwhich was impossible, cause it was too dry. I’ve had a lot of different conditions. I’ve been hospitalized for being psychotic due to a slight break from my medication schedule. The AIDS virus attacked by brain; I became completely crazy for three months. I’ve been hospitalized for a giant MRSA infection which ate a hole in my back the size of a quarter. I’ve really had a lot of experience with medical issues, and none of them pleasant. But, I’m here and I’m doing really great.
I THINK ONE OF THE REASONS WE GET THESE ILLNESSES IS SO WE CAN GIVE COMFORT TO OTHERS AND HELP PEOPLE WORK THROUGH THEIR OWN PROBLEMS. WE CAN TELL THEM, “HEY, I HAVE BEEN THERE; I UNDERSTAND.” WHICH IS SOMETIMES ALL PEOPLE NEED, AS EVERYONE ALWAYS FEELS ALONE WHEN THEY HAVE A PROBLEM.
It’s like you can relate to someone who’s lost a parent if you’ve lost one. If you haven’t lost one, you really don’t know what it feels like. I now have an incredible number of emails that I’ve received from people who have responded to the New York Times magazine article that was written on me, or on the “Coma” performances. They really were inspired. I’ve done lectures at medical conferences and universities. Part of my role in life is to be an activist. So, that’s a big part of everything too; I’m not “just a piano player.”
FOR SOME ARTISTS, BEING A MUSICIAN IS AN END OF ITSELF, FOR THOSE CHOSEN FOR A CERTAIN CALLING, LIKE FRED HERSCH, IT IS A MEANS FOR SOMETHING ELSE, SOMETHING GREATER THAN EVEN HE CURRENTLY UNDERSTANDS. WHILE HE MAY NOT SEE IT, IT’S OBVIOUS THAT THERE IS A GOD OUT THERE GUIDING HIS STEPS. CHECK OUT HIS LAST COUPLE OF DISCS, AND SEE WHAT CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED THROUGH ONE SIMPLE LIFE.