Fred Hersch Silent, Listening LP

Silent, Listening is a major addition to ECM's distinguished line of solo piano recordings, featuring one of the outstanding improvising pianists and jazz masters of our time: Fred Hersch. The album features seven original creations and a handful of well-chosen standards, including Billy Strayhorn's "Star-Crossed Lovers," Sigmund Romberg's "Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise," Alec Wilder's "Winter of My Discontent" and Russ Freeman's "The Wind," all played with the focus, sensitivity and gracefulness for which Hersch is renowned. Developed with producer Manfred Eicher in the responsive acoustics of the Lugano studio, the album was recorded in May 2023.

While Hersch is more closely associated with his straight-ahead interpretations of classic American Songbook standards, here he displays just how painterly and surprisingly avant-garde his tastes lean. There's a sense on Silent, Listening that Hersch is composing in the moment, balancing the artful melodicism he is known for with sustained moments of freely improvised flights of fancy....like Ahmad Jamal in deep, improvisational reflection with Claude Debussy...