In this work of sensitivity and skill worthy of Bill Evans, by whom he was strongly inspired from the dawn of his career, pianist Fred Hersch, accompanied by John Hebert on double bass and Eric McPherson on drums, pays homage to the greatest names in jazz and pop with an elegant and uncluttered concert during the 2018 edition of Jazz à Ramatuelle. Hersch is one of the most prominent pianists in jazz history, as evidenced by his collaborations with Stan Getz or Charlie Haden, as well as his teaching experiences at the prestigious Berklee School of Music. Here is a trio of masters, which attests to a level of exceptional virtuosity, adjusted by a sober and chiseled playing down to the smallest breath.
To grasp the extent of his work and determination, we must recall the difficulties he faced when he had to overcome seropositivity, for which he was diagnosed at the end of the 1980s. His illness did not prevent him from continuing to build the landscape of contemporary jazz and, as a true artist, to use it as a vehicle for his creativity during a show released in 2014, titled My Coma Dreams. It recounts, through aerial poetry, the eight dreams he had during a coma triggered in 2008 by his medical situation. Still active today, he notably released a magnificent album in 2017, Open Book, in which he produced for the first time an incredible fifteen-minute improvisation, a memorable work from the first note to the last.
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