Fred Hersch

All Music Guide:

A superior soloist, accompanist, and interpreter of ballads, Fred Hersch started playing piano when he was four. He moved to New York in 1977 and worked as a sideman with many players including Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, Toots Thielemans, Art Farmer, Jane Ira Bloom, Eddie Daniels, and Janis Siegel, in addition to leading his own groups. During 1980-1986, he taught at the New England Conservatory and became part of the faculty at the New School. In addition, Hersch has recorded extensively as a leader, including for Sunnyside, Concord, Angel/EMI, Red, and Chesky, issuing Songs We Know in 1998. Songs Without Words followed three years later. Since that time, Hersch has remained quite active, releasing a bevy of albums including the three-disc Songs Without Words in 2001, the ambitious Walt Whitman-inspired project Leaves of Grass in 2005, and Night & the Music in 2007. In 2009, Live at Jazz Standard appeared on Sunnyside, billed under the Fred Hersch Pocket Orchestra, as did the solo bossa nova-themed effort Fred Hersch Plays Jobim. In 2010, Hersch released Whirl, on Palmetto. A trio recording with drummer Eric McPherson and bassist John Hébert, it focuses on originals but there are three notable covers: film composer Harry Warren's "You're My Everything," Jaki Byard's "Mrs. Parker of K.C.," and Paul Motian's "Blue Midnight." Hersch was also the subject of a major article in The New York Times Sunday Magazine in 2010 entitled Giant Steps: The Survival of a Great Jazz Pianist, by David Hadju. In 2011, Hersch delivered the live solo album Alone at the Vanguard.

Wikipedia:

Fred Hersch (born October 21, 1955 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is a contemporary American jazz pianist who has become a consistent and highly demanded performer on the international jazz scene.

Hersch began playing piano at a very young age, growing up in the North Avondale neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio, attending Walnut Hills High School. He also had an early interest in mandolin. By age 12, Fred had written his first symphony. He studied at Grinnell College in the mid 1970s and began playing in jazz clubs in Cincinnati. He later graduated from New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. His teachers included Sophia Rosoff. He moved to New York City in the late 1970s where he soon found a place playing with artists including Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, Lee Konitz, Art Farmer, and Charlie Haden.

Hersch soon began recording his own records and composing music. Although Hersch has played in a number of different instrumental combinations, he also plays as a solo performer, and many of his albums—such as Live at the Bimhuis (2005)--are solo recitals. In 2006 he was invited by club owner Lorraine Gordon to perform the first-ever solo piano booking at the legendary Village Vanguard jazz club in New York City.

Hersch's also works as a vocal accompanist and has recently recorded duo work with Jay Clayton, Nancy King, and Karin Oberlin.

In 1986 he was diagnosed with HIV. Since then, Hersch has campaigned and performed for several AIDS-related charities and causes. Along with Gary Burton and Andy Bey, Hersch is one of the few openly gay jazz musicians.

He is also a music educator, having taught at the New School University, Manhattan School of Music, Western Michigan University, and his alma mater, the New England Conservatory.

In February 2010, he was interviewed by Linus Wyrsch on The Jazz Hole for BreakThru Radio.