GM3033 Fred Hersch/Michael Moore/Gerry Hemingway:
Thirteen Ways

After almost 20 years of universal acclaim as a ‘musician’s musician,’ pianist/composer Fred Hersch is now gaining wide recognition as a major artists with an unmistakably singular identity.  The New Yorker has called him “a poet of a pianist,” Down Beat has said “he is one of the small handful of brilliant musicians of his generation” and CD Review has noted Hersch’s “magical sense of time and space.”

An old college and New York City buddy of Hersch’s, the amazing clarinetist Michael Moore, migrated to Amsterdam in the early ’80s.  Moving to Holland meant forsaking fame in the USA, but Moore flourished, developing a style that has garnered him praise as the best clarinetist in jazz today.  In 1986, he became only the second non-Dutch musician to win the top national jazz award, the Boy Edgar Prize.

Percussionist Gerry Hemingway is Hersch’s opposite: he’s worked with Don Byron, Derek Bailey, John Cale, Anthony Braxton, Anthony Davis and others.  Suffice it to say that in this case, opposites attract.  Hear the incredible Hersch/Hemingway duet “Star Eyes,” especially its quietly dramatic entrance.

Hersch convened this trio for two days of recording and a standing-room-only gig at New York’s Knitting Factory’s July ’95 festival.  According to Hersch, “The nice thing about playing with Michael and Gerry is there are no limits.”  The trio deftly balances chamber music delicacy with casual but intense swing.  Thirteen Ways is the trio’s magnum opus.   It’s made up of loose improvisations on each of thirteen poems by Wallace Stevens.

Think of Wallace Stevens as a spiritual kin…   A high degree of order, yet a fascination with chaos…