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Owen McNally writes about jazz and other music events in Connecticut's Jazz Corridor, stretching from the tip of Fairfield County, right through New Haven and Hartford, and on up beyond the state into the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts. Keep up with the best our area has to offer in music.

Pianist Fred Hersch Leads Tight-Knit Trio at Historic Chester Meeting House

John Rogers
Fred Hersch.
"I used minimal musical materials in the piece, and we just let the harmonic colors and the vibe of the tune do the rest."
Fred Hersch

A rare artistic species, the great pianist/composer Fred Herschis a true original, as independent a voice and as rugged and self-reliant an individual creating in the American grain as, say, Henry David Thoreau or Walt Whitman, Bill Evans or Thelonious Monk.

Instead of embracing the prevailing dogmas of the left -- the rigid belief that only the new has validity -- or of the right -- everything but the traditional is heretical -- Hersch, a rare openly gay jazz musician, skates right past these two stultifying, sanctimonious extremist sects. Instead of kowtowing to any party line, he instead invents a voice and world of his own. Following his vision, he creates deeply expressive music that is unabashedly lyrical, witty, vibrant, smart, swinging, unpretentiously sophisticated and 100 percent sophistry-free.

Credit Fred Hersch
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Fred Hersch
Fred Hersch Trio's album, Floating.

Celebrating his latest trio album, Floating (Palmetto Records), the six-time Grammy Award nominee performs with bassist Aidan Carroll and drummer Eric McPherson at 5:00 pm on Sunday, November 23, marking the 41st season of the distinguished Collomore Concert Series at the historic Chester Meeting House in Chester.

Except for the fact that the CD features John Hebert on bass rather than Carroll, Floating is an excellent preview of what the congregation of the jazz faithful at the meeting house might well expect from the multifaceted, iconic pianist and the signature style he brings to bear on the art of the jazz piano trio.

Credit Mark Niskanen
Fred Hersch.

In fact, as Hersch points out in his liner notes, the CD itself is sequenced the way the trio plays its live sets in clubs, concert halls and, more than likely, even in the venerable meeting house in Chester.

“We often open with a standard, play some original music… the penultimate tune is a ballad from the American Popular Songbook, and we almost always end with a Monk tune,” Hersch explained in his comments in Floating.

True to form, the CD opener is the classic Dietz and Schwartz, "You and the Night and the Music," streaming with rippling contrapuntal lines as the left hand converses with the right hand. It’s a two-part invention spiked with Latin seasoning, making the celebratory song sound like a hip, Latin/Bach bacchanal.

The CD’s next-to-last selection is another elegant ballad, "If Ever I Would Leave You," from the classic Lerner and Lowe musical, "Camelot." Here, it’s given a new, beautiful interpretation by Hersch, a pianist for all seasons, whether in springtime, summer, winter or fall. The grand finale, which casts new light on Monk’s illuminating, "Let’s Cool One," is an amusing, straight-no-chaser final call for Hersch’s hour-long piano forte feast.

Fred Hersch Trio

Floating, Hersch wrote of the album’s title tune, “is the magic sound place where the trio lives a lot of the time—trusting each other so much that we can leave space. I used minimal musical materials in the piece, and we just let the harmonic colors and the vibe of the tune do the rest.”

All five other originals are inspired by Hersch’s indelible ties with family, friends and colleagues. These portraits range from "West Virginia Rose," written for his mother and maternal grandmother, to "Arcata" (the place in Oregon where the redwoods meet the ocean), which is dedicated to his friend and collaborator, bassist/composer/vocalist Esperanza Spalding, an Oregon native.

Most affecting is his ethereal composition, Far Away, the recording’s meditative centerpiece/masterpiece, which Hersch wrote in memory of the sensational, rising Israeli pianist Shimrit Shoshan, whose death in 2012 shocked the New York jazz world when she died from cardiac arrest at only 29.

Her death hit close to Hersch and all the trio members, obviously, most profoundly so for McPherson, the pianist’s loving husband. Both McPherson and Hebert played on the gifted pianist’s groundbreaking 2011 debut album, Keep It Movin’, and she had taken several lessons with Hersch, a noted piano mentor. His students have included such now famous pianists as Brad Mehldau and Ethan Iverson of the Bad Plus.

A longtime Hartford favorite, McPherson, a musical, inventive drummer with a deep sense of swing and nuance, makes key contributions to Hersch’s subtle, yet swinging, tight-knit trio. This comes as no surprise to local fans who have followed the development of the dynamic drummer’s artistry since his apprentice years as a student at the Hartt School, and as one of the late Jackie McLean’slegion of gifted, now increasingly influential protégés.

Even early on it was apparent that McPherson, who began his formal drum studies with the great percussionistMichael Carvin, was a drummer with a sense of style and sensitivity. McLean, a legendary alto saxophonist/composer/bandleader and educator at Hartt School, always had an unerring ear for selecting drummers, including such luminaries as Carvin, Jack DeJohnette, Billy Higgins and the teenage wizard Tony Williams just before he went on to make history with Miles Davis.

Hersch first introduced his trio with McPherson and Hebert with the 2010 release of his celebratory trio album, Whirl (Palmetto). That acclaimed disc marked the pianist’s miraculous recovery from a two-month long, medically-induced coma so deep that his family, friends and doctors despaired that he’d ever regain consciousness. Prior to his near-death experience, he had been severely ill with AIDS, which led to severe pneumonia. Spiraling out of control, the HIV virus migrated to his brain, causing AIDS-related dementia, before he fell into his long, nearly fatal coma in the summer of 2008.

Out of that unimaginably terrifying ordeal, Hersch, with his health restored, used his gift to transform the horror he had endured into art, creating his jazz/theater production work, My Coma Dreams. A multimedia, collaborative creation with librettist/scriptwriterHerschel Garfein, Hersch’s autobiography from hell mixes music, words and images to recreate his unconscious existence in a coma, recalling his Dadaist dreams, hallucinatory nightmares, impenetrable mysteries and, weirdly enough, even at times a bizarre beauty.

Describing that netherworld on the dividing line between life and death, Hersch has recounted dreaming of himself existing in a maze of mysterious, weird, sometimes terrifyingly surreal or momentarily serene situations. Among his recollections is the sense of being in hushed cathedrals; trapped in a cage beside jazz legend Thelonious Monk; careening through the night in a runaway van; even dancing the tango in an impossibly luxurious airplane.

My Coma Dreams, his profoundly moving notes from the underground of the unconscious, premiered in 2011 at the Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University.

Dream of Monk (Hersch) from Ross Karre on Vimeo.

Even after all that physical agony and mental torment, Hersch still emerges as one of our great creators of beauty and truth.

The pianist leads his trio at 5:00 pm on Sunday, November 23, at the Chester Meeting House at 4 Liberty Street in Chester. A reception will be held after the concert where you can meet and chat with the performers. Tickets: $24.00 adults; $5.00 students. Information: collomoreconcerts.org, email tickets@collomoreconcerts.org, or call (860) 526-5162.

Life Is a Squeezebox of Ear Candy

Andrea Parkins,the cutting-edge accordionist/composer and sculptor of electronic sound installations, has been described by The New Yorker magazine as an artist whose “exquisite musicianship can turn the most unfamiliar sounds into hypnotic ear candy.” Her mesmerizing sonic confections on accordion materialize, the magazine declares, through her use of “electronic processing to transform the squeezebox into a vast sound generator.”

Parkins, a New York-based improvising musician and innovative sound artist who has presented her work in venues ranging from the Knitting Factory to the Whitney Museum of American Art, returns for an encore appearance Friday night, November 21, at New Haven’s Firehouse 12. She’ll collaborate with trumpeter Nate Wooleyand drummerChris Corsanoin the debut performance of their electroacoustic collaborative ensemble. Performances are at 8:30 and 10:00 pm at the New Haven new music haven at 45 Crown Street. Tickets: $20.00 first set; $15.00 second set. Information: firehouse12.com and (203) 785-0468.

Electronhic Explorations

On the next night, Saturday, November 22, at 8:30 and 10:00 pm, Firehouse 12 is the stomping grounds for The New Haven Improvisers Collective (NHIC), the tenth consecutive year that the revolutionary artists’ collective has showcased its new music in the progressive venue.

Credit www.nhic-records.com
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www.nhic-records.com
The New Haven Improvisers Collective

Marking the occasion, NHIC’sElectronhic, a cutting-edge ensemble, celebrates the release of its new eponymously titled CD. The band’s music is self-described “as driven by a Chapman Stick (an electronic, stringed instrument in the guitar family) and drums, with comments, noise, electronics, saxophones, whistles and guitars.” Its members are: Bob Gorry, guitar; Brett Bottomley, Chapman Stick; Jeff Cedrone, guitar; Paul McGuire, alto and soprano saxophones; and Pete Riccio, drums. A $15.00 ticket gets you into both sets. Available online at firehouse12.com, by phone at (203) 785-0468 or at the box office at 7:00 pm the night of the show.

Café Nine Says Yes to Electronics

New Haven’s Café Nine gives a big enthusiastic “yes” to the high-voltage art of plugging-in with A Night of Electronic Music at 8:30 pm on Wednesday, November 19, featuring four separate sets presented as part of the Uncertainty Music Series.

Jon Eriksen, a visual artist and electronics musician with an interest in the depiction of violence in film and literature, celebrates the release of his new album, Shadowanthems. Chris Goudreau performs a set of concrete modular synth music. Draggers, a duo featuring Andrew Morelli and Matt Luczak, charge the café’s avant-garde ambience with synth and drums. Subfloor, a unit composed of Chris Cretella, guitar; Dave Parmelee, drums; andCarl Testa,electronics and computer controlled lighting, also illuminates the night of electronic music. Admission: $5.00. The café is 250 State Street. Information:uncertaintymusic.com

Berger, King of the Vibes

Karl Berger, the venerable vibraphonist/composer/arranger, pianist and educator, headlines the Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares ongoing concert series as he leads his trio at 7:30 pm on Friday, November 21, at the Community Music School of Springfield at 127 State Street in Springfield, Massachusetts. Berger’s helpers are the noted new music bassist and longtime Connecticut favorite, Joe Fonda, and drummerHarvey Sorgen.

Credit karlberger.org
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karlberger.org
Karl Berger, conducting

Berger, a 79-year-old native of Heidelberg, Germany, has brought his regal, open-ended yet swinging, original approach on vibes to collaborations with fellow free jazz adventurers ranging from Carla Bley and Don Cherry toSam Rivers and Pharoah Sanders.

While his loyalist supporters may think of Berger as an uncrowned king of the vibes, Dave Brubeck, yet another staunch supporter, elevated the mallet master to presidential status.

“The way Karl plays vibes,” Brubeck said, apparently forgetting Berger’s foreign birth certificate, “he should be President of the United States.” Tickets: $15.00. For information on Jazz Shares and how this jazz-loving non-profit ingeniously finances concerts like this Bergerfest, go to jazzshares.org. Tickets available at the website and at the door.

Up Close with the Baerman Trio

Pianist/composer Noah Baerman and his trio mates, bassist Henry Lugo and drummer Jerome Jennings,present a workshop, open discussion with its audience and a performance on Thursday, November 20, in the Hubbard Room at the Russell Library, 123 Broad Street in Middletown.

A free event, the session offers the opportunity to both hear a top-flight jazz trio and to discuss the unit’s inner workings with the players, or any questions you might have about jazz itself.

There will be a workshop demonstration and a Q and A session at 6:00 pm, followed by a set by the trio. The interactive mix of discussion and performance is presented in conjunction with Baerman’s course, Survey of Jazz Styles, offered this semester through the Graduate Liberal Studies program at Wesleyan University. Here’s a chance to see and hear Baerman both as a premier pianist and as an unpedantic piano pedagogue and engaging interlocutor. Information: (860) 347-2528.

880’s DePalma Plays the 88s at 226

PianistDon DePalma, one of Hartford’s heroic veteran Defenders of the Faith in Jazz, performs at 7:00 pm on Saturday, November 22, at 226 Jazz, 226 Broad Street in Windsor.

Credit Bill Shea
Don DePalma at the 880 Club

DePalma, who’s performed with a legion of jazz greats, was for many years the music director and house pianist at Hartford’s legendary 880 Club, acting as the wise, invaluable consigliere for the fabled club’s owner and Hartford’s beloved “Godfather of Jazz,” Al Casasanta. Admission: $20.00. Information: (860) 508-3183.

Pleasant Jazz, Amazing Feats

Drummer Jocelyn Pleasant leads her quartet -- a rhythm section plus the amazing feats of tap dancer Corey Hutchins -- at 7:00 pm on Friday, November 21, at The Buttonwood Tree, 605 Main Street, Middletown. Pleasant, perhaps the world’s most aptly surnamed drummer, is also joined by pianist Orice Jenkinsand bassist Matt Dwonszyk, royally riffing behind Hutchins’ regal hoofing. Admission: $10.00. Information: (860) 347-4957.

Please submit press releases on upcoming jazz events at least two weeks before the publication date to omac28@gmail.com. Comments left below are also most welcome.

Tess Aaronson contributed to this post.

Owen McNally writes the weekly Jazz Corridor column for WNPR.org as well as periodic freelance pieces for The Hartford Courant and other publications.

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