Fred Hersch was born on October 21, 1955. He is an American jazz pianist and composer who has been nominated for a Grammy Award 17 times. He was the first person to perform for a week as a solo pianist at the Village Vanguard in New York City. He has written and recorded over 75 original musical pieces.

Early life

Fred Hersch was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Jewish parents. He started playing the piano at age four, with the help of a teacher named Jeanne Kirstein. He began writing music at eight years old and won national piano competitions when he was ten.

Fred first became interested in jazz while studying at Grinnell College in Iowa. He left school and began playing jazz music in Cincinnati. Later, he continued his education at the New England Conservatory, where he studied with a teacher named Jaki Byard. His performance at a college recital caught the attention of the press, who described it as "a great example of Fred Hersch's talent." After graduating, he became a jazz piano teacher at the college.

In his 2017 autobiography, Good Things Happen Slowly: A Life In and Out of Jazz, Fred writes about seeing the musician Sun Ra and his group, the Intergalactic Arkestra, perform at Gilly's, a jazz club in Dayton, Ohio, that is no longer open. He recalls being in the audience when a bandleader named Art Pepper told the pianist hired for the event to leave the stage and asked if anyone in the crowd could play with the band. Fred accepted the offer, and this experience helped start his career as a jazz musician.

Career

In 1977, Hersch moved to New York. One of his first professional jobs was with Art Farmer in Los Angeles in 1978. Jazz critic Leonard Feather wrote that Hersch "showed his ability as an accompanist and soloist at the out-of-tune piano." He performed with Farmer again in 1981. In 1982, the album A Work of Art (Art Farmer Quartet, Concord Jazz CJ-179) was released, with Hersch on piano. The album included two of Hersch's own compositions, and Leonard Feather gave it 3½ stars.

In 1980, the Fred Hersch Trio performed at B. Dalton Bookseller, one of many side events connected to the Newport Jazz Festival. The next year, his trio played for singer Chris Connor, who was returning to performing after completing a recovery program for alcoholism. Hersch also performed at the Kool Jazz Festival that year and with Joe Henderson in the New Jazz at the Public series.

In 1983, Hersch performed a duo session with bassist Ratzo Harris at the Knickerbocker Saloon in New York. The New York Times wrote: "Mr. Hersch is a romantic. He is openly involved in what he is playing and shows this involvement through his body language and facial expressions. His musical lines often flow like gentle waves of sound, and he moves and changes with them."

From 1983 to 1984, Hersch performed many sessions with Jane Ira Bloom in several venues. They recorded the album Mighty Lights together. In 1985, he played with the Jamie Baum Quartet.

In 1986, he performed with Toots Thielemans at the Great Woods jazz festival. He performed with him in several sessions the following year and again in 1987, receiving special attention for his solos. In 1986, he taught at Berklee College of Music.

He was the pianist for the Eddie Daniels quartet in 1987 and appeared on his album, To Bird with Love.

In 1988, Hersch performed in Somerville, Massachusetts, with his quintet at the Willow Jazz Club. The Boston Globe described him as "an elegant, highly melodic player."

In 1989, Hersch performed with Janis Siegel of The Manhattan Transfer, and they recorded together in a studio set up in his home. His first solo piano recording came in 1993: Fred Hersch at Maybeck.

In 2006, Palmetto Records released the solo CD Fred Hersch in Amsterdam: Live at the Bimhuis, and released his eighth solo disc, Fred Hersch Plays Jobim, in 2009.

In 2024, Hersch performed with Drew Gress and Joey Baron at the Teatro Mario Del Monaco in Treviso, in the Northeast of Italy. The concert was part of the festival Treviso Suona Jazz Festival.

Composing

Fred Hersch's own music is often performed in his concerts and recordings. He has been asked to create music for the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, the Doris Duke Foundation, the Miller Theatre at Columbia University, the Gramercy Trio, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. A CD featuring his through-composed works, Fred Hersch: Concert Music 2001-2006, was released by Naxos Records.

Many of Hersch's compositions have been published by Edition Peters, including Valentine, Three Character Studies, Saloon Songs, and 24 Variations on a Bach Chorale.

In 2003, Hersch received a Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for composition. That same year, he created Leaves of Grass (Palmetto Records), a major musical arrangement of Walt Whitman's poetry for two voices (Kurt Elling and Kate McGarry) and an instrumental octet. It was performed in March 2005 at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall as part of a six-city U.S. tour.

Accompanist

Hersch has worked with musicians who play instruments and singers in the fields of jazz (Joe Henderson, Charlie Haden, Art Farmer, Stan Getz, Jay Clayton, and Bill Frisell), classical music (Renée Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, Joshua Bell, Christopher O'Riley, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg), and Broadway (Audra McDonald). He has performed with jazz singers such as Nancy King, Norma Winstone, and Kurt Elling.

Hersch has taught at The New School and Manhattan School of Music. He also led a professional training workshop for young musicians at The Weill Institute at Carnegie Hall in 2008.

Awards and honors

• Académie Charles Cros
• Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in Composition, 2003
• Coup de coeur for Alone at the Vanguard, 2011
• Grand Prix du Disque for Alive at the Vanguard, 2012
• Pianist of the Year, Jazz Journalists Association, 2011, 2016, 2018
• Pianist of the Year, DownBeat magazine Critics' Poll, 2015
• Artiste étranger de l'année, Jazz magazine in France, 2015
• Grand Prix du Disque de l'Académie du Jazz, Solo, 2015
• Honorary Doctor of Musical Arts, Northern Kentucky University, 2015
• Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, 2016
• Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, Grinnell College, 2016
• Prix Honorem in Jazz and Coup de cœur jazz, 2017
• Book of the Year about Jazz, Good Things Happen Slowly, Jazz Journalists Association, 2018
• Hersch has been awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship, grants from Chamber Music America, the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, and seven composition residencies at the MacDowell Colony.

Art Farmer’s A Work of Art in 1983 and two of Eddie Daniels’ albums with Hersch in 1986 and 1987 came before Short Stories, a collaboration between Janis Siegel and Hersch. This project was co-led and co-produced, with arrangements by Hersch, and received a nomination for her vocal performance in 1989. In 1992, Dancing in the Dark, his seventh trio recording and second for Chesky Records, was nominated for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance. Hersch is one of the Grammy artists with the most nominations (17) without a win.

• 1992: Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Individual or Group for Dancing in the Dark
• 1995: Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Individual or Group for I Never Told You: Fred Hersch Plays Johnny Mandel
• 2005: Best Instrumental Composition for "Valentine" (on In Amsterdam: Live at the Bimhuis)
• 2011: Best Jazz Instrumental Album for Alone at the Vanguard, and Best Improvised Jazz Solo for "Work"
• 2013: Best Improvised Jazz Solo for "Song Without Words No. 4: Duet" with Julian Lage
• 2014: Best Jazz Instrumental Album for Floating (as the Fred Hersch Trio), and Best Improvised Jazz Solo for "You and the Night and the Music"
• 2016: Best Jazz Instrumental Album for Sunday Night at the Vanguard, and Best Improvised Jazz Solo for "We See"
• 2017: Best Jazz Instrumental Album for Open Book, and Best Improvised Jazz Solo for "Whisper Not"
• 2018: Best Jazz Instrumental Album for Live in Europe and Best Improvised Jazz Solo for "We See"
• 2019: Best Instrumental Composition for Begin Again
• 2023: Best Jazz Vocal Album for Alive at the Village Vanguard and Best Improvised Jazz Solo for But Not For Me

Critical response

DownBeat magazine described Hersch as "one of the very few brilliant musicians of his generation." The New York Times described him as "a unique pioneer in their art, an innovator who hasn't received much recognition for creating a new kind of jazz that is free from limits and focuses on individual expression – a jazz for the 21st century."

Influence

Fred Hersch has had a big impact on a new group of jazz pianists, including former students such as Brad Mehldau, Ethan Iverson, Sullivan Fortner, Aaron Diehl, and Dan Tepfer, as well as his contemporary Jason Moran. Moran once said, "Fred at the piano is like LeBron James on the basketball court. He's perfection."

Personal life

In 1993, Hersch publicly shared that he is gay and that he had received treatment for HIV since 1984. In 2008, he was in a coma for two months. After waking up, he lost muscle strength because he had not been active for a long time and could not play the piano. After receiving medical help to recover, he was able to play again. In 2011, he performed My Coma Dreams, a stage show created and directed by Herschel Garfein that explores the differences between dreams and real life.

Since 1993, Hersch has worked as a spokesperson and fundraiser for organizations that provide education and support related to AIDS. He has created and performed on four charity recordings and participated in many concerts for groups such as Classical Action: Performing Arts Against AIDS and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, which had raised more than $250,000 by June 2013. In April 2016, he performed at a charity concert for Buddhist Global Relief. He has also given keynote speeches and performed at international medical conferences.

Discography

Artists and record labels are connected only once, when they first appear. Groupings can be organized into categories such as "solo," "duo," "trio," and so on. All trios are traditional piano trios that include a grand piano, upright bass, and drum kit, except for the trio named Thirteen Ways, which features saxophonist Michael Moore instead of a piano.