Fred Hersch Trio Cork

From New York

Fred Hersch Trio
Fred Hersch-piano/John Hebert-bass/Eric McPherson-drums



"A modern master." - Downbeat

"A pristine pianist with a poet's soul." - The Boston Globe

November 2007 Tour

Friday 16th 8pm Triskel Arts Centre Cork

Tickets: 20/18 euro

It's right to see jazz as an instinctive form of expression, but an erudite mind can always be found at work within its most eloquent statements. Fred Hersch is such a musician, deftly balancing the cerebral and emotive to create only beautiful music.

A child of the 1950s, Hersch's early musical journey took him from his native Cincinnati to Boston's famed New England Conservatory, where formal studies were the overture to a rigorous apprenticeship in late '70s New York with musicians like Stan Getz and Joe Henderson. As such, he's an increasingly important bridge to that generation of jazz icons, quite apart from his own persuasive contribution to the jazz piano lexicon.

From the mid '80s onwards, his evolution has been stately, eschewing any histrionics in favour of a deeply refined classicism. He has been prolific too, quietly amassing a broad discography that embraces many constellations, like Leaves Of Grass, a magnificently realized large group homage to the American poet Walt Whitman, and a remarkable output of exceptionally lyrical solo recordings, the seventh of which is Live at The Bimhuis (2005, Palmetto).

Be it in peerless solo performance, or in trio as he appears for this debut Irish tour, a constant throughout has been the Broadway standard, especially the ballads, an environment conducive to Hersch's taste for rhapsody. But nor is he averse to swinging with a probing urgency, that other constant of Manhattan musical life, and a sentiment shared by two other leading New York musicians in bassist John Hebert and drummer Eric McPherson.