Fred Hersch Breath By Breath LP

On his ambitious album Breath By Breath, pianist and composer Fred Hersch pairs a jazz rhythm section with a string quartet.

"String quartets have been some of my favorite music to listen to my whole life," Hersch explains. "I grew up listening to string quartets as a very young musician in Cincinnati. My piano teacher was the wife of the cellist in the famous LaSalle Quartet. I used to lie on the rug in their living room as an elementary school student while they rehearsed, quietly following along, hearing how the viola part meshed with the first violin, or the second violin and the cello. And ever since I started studying composition at age eight, almost all of my music has always focused on four melodic parts - so string quartets are a natural musical configuration for me."

Hersch is joined by bassist Drew Gress, drummer Jochen Rueckert and The Crosby Street String Quartet, made up of violinists Joyce Hammann and Laura Seaton, violist Lois Martin, and cellist Jody Redhage Ferber.

Breath By Breath draws inspiration from the pianist's longtime practice of mindfulness meditation, centered on the new eight-movement 'Sati Suite.' But while the album is certainly contemplative and lustrous, it's far from being merely an ambient backdrop for blissful relaxation - the music on Breath By Breath is as fully engaged and emotionally rich as any that Hersch has made over the course of his remarkable career.

a pianist, composer and conceptualist of rare imaginative power

Hersch's work has developed an intensity of intelligence and emotional directness unparalleled among his peers.