As Pat Metheny is to the guitar, Fred Hersch is to the piano. Both are ambitiously and artistically restless, always looking for new sonic lands to conquer. He’s done solos, operas and trios, but this one with his team of Drew Gress/b, Jochen Rueckert/dr and Rogerio Boccato/perc melds perfectly with the Crosby Street String Quartet (Joyce Hammann-Laura Seaton/vi, Lois Martin/va, Jody Redhage Ferber/cel).
Hershe mixes and matches instruments and moods like a master of Lego Land, putting pieces together to create rich musical constructions. The strings are featured on the melancholic “Know That You Are” while serving up a gorgeous intro and outro to “Awakened Heart” with Hersch’s piano filling in the middle like a tasty Oreo. The strings tap out an exotic pulse with their bows and Boccato’s percussion on a jaunty “Mara” while they are loose and intuitive around Gress’ soloing on “Monkey Mind”. As for Hersch himself, he is richly Chopinesque on the graceful “Begin Again” and parlor perfection on the prismatic “Pastorale”. Strings that swing and sing.