Peerless pianist

The consummate poise of Fred Hersch

by Jim Macnie

Last month Fred Hersch's trio spent a week at New York's Village Vanguard, realigning the infrastructure of standards and probing the outer membrane of the leader's keen originals. The 42-year-old pianist is a virtuoso, and after many years of working together, he and his henchmen -- bassist Drew Gress and drummer Tom Rainey -- have developed an extraordinary simpatico for turning the obvious upside down and inside out.

Jazz is usually defined by the quality of the interaction it generates, and at the Vanguard the trio's moves were wily and entertaining. One of the most respected improvisers in New York, Hersch is an intellectual. But he's also a sensitivo who wants to fully communicate to his audience.

"Our trio sometimes does some wacky stuff," the pianist recently explained, "but we nestle it in between things that are accessible and familiar. These days, performers need to be cognizant of context."

Hersch won't have his pals to bounce ideas off of when he arrives at the Greenwich Odeum on Saturday for a solo concert. For the last several weeks he's been traveling around the country, performing what he calls "Mostly Monk" recitals in conjunction with his latest Nonesuch disc, Thelonious. It's an homage to the cunning jazz composer, and like the Rodgers & Hammerstein tribute that preceded it, a record that finds the pianist resizing the master's tunes to fit his own esthetic views.

Artistically, it's also another step forward for Hersch. He's long been known for his poise, but the consummate bearing displayed on tracks like "In Walked Bud" and "I Mean You" blends a punchy attack with some very conspicuous grace. You often feel the presence of a drummer who isn't there. The pianist is also able to connect the composer's dots in a highly individual way. Toying with fragmented phrases at the start of "Think of One," he nonetheless generates a crafty flow of sound. The result is a novel perspective on a jazz chestnut.

Hersch's other current project is The Duo Album, a disc that pairs him with Jim Hall, Gary Burton, Diana Krall, Joe Lovano and other jazz luminaries. Sold over the phone (212-840-0770), its revenues go to Classical Action, a non-profit organization that assists HIV/AIDS education, prevention and services. Last week, back home in Soho for a few days, Hersch took an hour to chat about the rigors and fruits of performing alone.

Q: Does solo work teach you something about yourself that ensemble playing doesn't?

A: When I play solo, a lot of the ideas are about sound itself. Alone, I can use a wider range of dynamics. It forces me to play the whole piano. Also, in the trio, there's always something going on. When you play solo, you learn about using space, how to leave a hole. You think, "Oh, I've got to fill things up, I'm all alone." But the spaces you leave make the fuller sections more appreciated. I also like the chance to juggle several balls at once: use inner voices and keep several melodic or contrapuntal ideas going on at once. That's fun. I grew up listening to string quartets, and always dug the way voices move. One of the great things about the piano, compared to other instruments I mean, is you can get so much stuff going on simultaneously. But I also like playing very simply: one voice, two voices, lots of space. And measuring touch on each piece. The touch on "In Walked Bud" is different than that of "The Nearness of You." I think that's the classical side of me coming out. You'd use a different touch for Mozart than you would Bartok, right?

Q: Did you ever go through a phase of trying to ditch the classical elements of your playing?

A: Well, I had a teenage rebellion, around the time that the hormones kiced in. I was a prodigy . . . .

Q: You could sit down at a piano at age 18 and the whole room would turn its head?

A: I had an early thing -- ages 4 to 12 -- where I was writing music as a seven-year-old, and studying analysis, theory and composition in elementary school. I won contests and all that stuff. But when puberty hit I realized I didn't want to crank in the hours to top Vladimir Horowitz. I'd always improvised, but then I started improvising on popular songs of the time, like Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, the Beatles, Motown. It didn't sound like jazz; I was just a piano stylist. Of course, then I heard jazz as a 17-year-old, and thought, "This is the shit." So I've always had this classical music thread going through the music. After I leave Rhode Island, I'm going to Hungary to play with the Budapest Chamber Orchestra. So I still do it. But when I got bit by the early jazz bug, I was anti-classical for a spell, sure. You listen to McCoy Tyner and Bud Powell and think, "Fuck this namby-pamby stuff." These days I feel at home with that classical part of my personality. Both the esthetics meet somewhere in my stuff.

Q: When you pick your subjects for these discs -- Billy Strayhorn, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Monk -- are you necessarily looking for composers with which you have some parallels?

A: Rodgers & Hammerstein's stuff was all about songs and lyrics, period. Strayhorn was somewhere between that and Monk; part of him was a jazz writer, part was a songwriter, with words and such. I've played Monk for years and years. With Monk, there's no words to deal with, so I felt freer to investigate rhythms and sounds. When there are words . . . .

Q: It's hard for listeners to escape sentiment.

A: Exactly. Once the lyrics are there, their meaning is hard to strip away. With our trio we'll skew a standard in a strange way, but still the lyrics are there somewhere, informing the way I arrange or approach the tune. But Monk is pure sound and space and motifs.

Q: Those things can be abstract, but luckily for interpreters Monk's elements are thoroughly entertaining. Monk's often touted as a humorist. You use that angle to a degree, but you seem inquisitive regarding other aspects of his persona. You don't stress the humor.

A: Partially it's because Monk stresses his humorous side. I wasn't dogmatic about it with my disc, like I'm not going to go there. But I didn't want to do a Monk cop. I didn't want to risk imitating. You can buy Monk if you want that. Like a painter working with still life. After years he'll come to a point of peace with the subject. It remains a still life. However, it's his still life. Monk's melodies are classic themes, like Beethoven's sonatas would be for classical pianists. It's the meat and potatoes of the literature -- you've got to make a statement on it.

Q: You seem to find romance in his stuff.

A: Sure. What's that one, "There's Danger In Your Eyes, Cherie?" That's great. It was hard choosing which tunes to do. My producer and I wanted the record to have a definite shape. Did you see the Sunday Times piece about how no one listens to a whole record anymore? I wanted to make something that had some shape to it. That's why those elaborations on "Mysterioso" are in the middle. It breaks up the program. I feel like I'm at the point in my career where I want to make a little bit bigger statement, and I wanted the record to have an identifiable flow.

Q: Which melody was the toughest to master?

A: It's crazy: the hardest tunes to record are now the easiest to play. "Ask Me Now" was tough at first. Now I'm comfortable with it. Some tunes I just used as intros -- I found I didn't want to play on them. Just displaying their spirit was enough. "Round Midnight" only needs a chorus to make a dent. Years ago, I was in [the New York club] Bradley's one night when I first got to town, and Jimmy Rowles was playing piano. I sat in front, checking him out. Jimmy played a ballad, went to another tune and played just the head, then another -- head only. By the fourth tune he could tell that I was waiting to hear the improv -- where's the jazz, right? -- and he leaned over and said, "You know, sometimes I just like to play melodies." And I've never forgotten that. Because sometimes it doesn't need to be any more than that. If you have an emotional connection with the song, it's sufficient.

Fred Hersch will perform at the Greenwich Odeum, 59 Main Street, East Greenwich, on Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $17. Call 885-9119.