Fred Hersch

“If you think too far ahead you drop the ball. This is why tennis and jazz are very similar,” he says, in the documentary “The Lives of Fred Hersch.”  He continues, “you have to play what is in front of you and what appears, and react to it.”

On Friday night he’ll be performing a solo piano concert at Chapin Hall in Williamstown, Mass.  “People should come expecting original music, and definitely some things by Thelonious Monk and some reworked standards,” he says.

Like the notes that arrive at his finger tips, the final order of the program will be spontaneous. “I’ll be deciding as I go,” says Hersch.

Hailed as one of today’s finest jazz pianists, Hersch is up for two Grammy Awards for his latest disc, “Alone at the Vanguard.”    Apart from his skills as both improviser and composer, Hersch’s health condition over the last 25 years has provided plenty of opportunity to stay present, both literally and figuratively.

In 1986, Hersch was diagnosed with HIV.  Soon after, he went public about his condition. More importantly, he survived the darkest era of the AIDS epidemic, when seemingly an entire generation of artists died in their prime.  Advancements in treatment, though, haven’t meant the end of problems.

In late 2009, Hersch suffered a precipitous decline, as a persistent cough led to a major infection. Late that year he was rushed by his partner to an emergency room, where doctors put him under a medically induced coma that lasted for two months.

“After I came out of it, it was a good 8 months til I could eat, talk or walk.  It was a near death thing and was going down hill fast,” says Hersch. “If I’d not gotten to the hospital when I did, I might not be talking to you.”

It seems an understatement to say that Hersch had a determination to continue with life and music.

In the year after rehabilitation was complete, he recorded two new albums.  He also began remembering the dream world of his coma, which included dancing a tango aboard a luxury airplane and hanging out with Thelonious Monk.  At first, he just typed out the fantasies into a computer file and got on with things.  But eventually he shared them with a friend, the writer and director Herschel Garfein, who fashioned them into a dramatic scenario that mixes the surreal dream world with the cold reality of the hospital.

The resulting show, “My Coma Dreams,” with original music by Hersch, was developed at Montclair State University last spring and subsequently had a short run in San Francisco.   Hersch describes the event as “jazz theater” and says that future productions are in the works.

“The people who’ve seen it have been moved and inspired by it and that’s what we want as artist,” he says. “So we achieved what we set out to do.”

Accomplishing what he sets out to do is typical of Hersch, who lists a large number of current projects, including a new set of songs for jazz vocalist Kurt Elling, and supervising a spring performance of his 2005 song cycle “Leaves of Grass” at the New England Conservatory, where he’s been a faculty member since 1980.  Touring, recording and teaching are ever on-going.

“I don’t sit around. I’m always doing stuff and I’m clinically and energetically better than I’ve been in years. The drugs are working,” says Hersch. “In November I had a full month of touring with my trio to eight countries. I came back in fine shape. Five years ago, I would have been whipped. It’s remarkable.”

“As an artist, we never know what’s going to come along and strike our fancy. I try to be open but also instigate things,” he says. “You have to roll with life and have patience and also know when to push yourself.”

Originally appeared in the Times Union.

Previously on My Big Gay Ears:

“Jazz and the Queer Aesthetic” in JazzTimes

Fred Hersch profile in the New York Times

Fred Hersch’s Whitman tunes

So writes John Murph in a thoughtful overview of gay and lesbian artists in jazz, for the December issue of JazzTimes.

Andy Bey

Artists mentioned in the article include Theo Bleckmann, Billy Strayhorn, Cecil Taylor, Gary Burton, Andy Bey, Ian Shaw, Fred Hersch, Lea DeLaria, Patricia Barber, Andrew D’Angelo, Allison Miller, Ben Allison, Dave Koz, Charlie Kohlhase and Terri Lyne Carrington. However, it’s not always clear in the story if each person who’s being quoted is gay or lesbian.  But a number of scholarly articles and projects are also mentioned.

Patricia Barber

The story makes me want to check out some music not previously on my radar including:

• Patricia Barber’s “Narcissus,” which explores a Sapphic love affair.

• Andrew D’Angelo’s band Gay Disco, and their songs “My Prostate” and “Cheek Spread.”

• Dave Koz’s latest disc, Hello Tomorrow (Concord), with a cover of Burt Bacharach’s “This Guy Is in Love With You.”

• Ben Allison’s “Dragzilla,” an homage to drag queens Raven O and Joey Arias.

Dave Koz

“Giant Steps: The Survival of a Great Jazz Pianist”

The disc features musical settings of the great gay poet Walt Whitman and coincides with the 150th anniversary of the first publication of the landmark collection “Leaves of Grass.”

“Just as Whitman is eclectic, the music covers a lot of territory,” says Hersch, who wrote the piece in a mere 6 weeks. “What surprised me the most was how ultimately lyrical this whole work is, because in Whitman there is no rhyme and no meter. I’m pleased that I was able to extract as many songs as I could – you know tunes!”

A seamless flow of twenty musical numbers, “Leaves of Grass” is Hersch’s most ambitious undertaking to date. The composition was commissioned, in part, by the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS.  Performances on disc and in concerts around the country this month are by jazz vocalists Kurt Elling and Kate McGarry with an ensemble of 8 players, led by Hersch at the keyboard.

The music is tune indeed – even lush. Particularly soulful is “The Mystic Trumpeter,” a haunting duet for trumpet and soprano, while “Song of Myself” is a substantial tour de force for Elling. In fact, the work as a whole is more on the scale of an oratorio, such as Handel’s “Messiah,” than any typical jazz recording.

Such departures from expectations are typical of Hersch, who’s next disc, due later this year, will be with operatic soprano Renee Fleming.

“I’m not your cookie cutter jazz pianist, I’m not your cookie cutter composer. I’m pretty much Fred,” he says. “I’ve reached the point as an artist where I am myself.”

Hersch may have become a singular artist, but he’s also a newly “married” man. Last October he exchanged vows in New York with Scott Morgan, a non-profit executive. The two met at Birdland, a jazz club in midtown Manhattan.

“We were there to hear someone else. I was introduced from the stage and he came up to me… that led to e-mails and a first date,” says Hersch.

Himself a trained musician, Morgan is currently studying jazz piano and has even tried his hand at selections from “The Fred Hersch Fake Book,” a collection of Hersch’s best known songs.

“It took him a little while to be comfortable practicing in front of me. I give him tips sometimes,” says Hersch. “It think it’s really sweet.”

Some evidence: Almost 50 years after its premiere, “West Side Story” receives an average of 300 productions a year in the United States and Canada, while the Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of “Wonderful Town” closes on Jan. 30, after having played more than 500 performances. In concert halls, Bernstein was the most-performed American orchestral composer during the 2003-04 season, according to the American Symphony Orchestra League.

Even the more thoughtful and less sunny aspects of Bernstein’s work seem to be shining lately. A collection of his famed “Young People’s Concerts” has just been reissued as a nine-DVD set, and his most daunting compositions of religious argument and political commentary including the cursing-the-heavens Symphony No. 3 “Kaddish” and the apocalyptic cry for peace “Mass” have been re-recorded and are getting performances on a surprisingly regular basis.

From the dancing to the preaching, virtually all facets of the Bernstein legacy can be seen and heard locally as part of The Egg‘s jam-packed festival “Leonard Bernstein’s Living Legacy,” which starts tonight. For two weeks, Albany will be the center of the Bernstein universe.

The lineup includes two orchestral programs, new takes on his music by jazz artists and a modern dance troupe, a theatrical exploration of his writings and ideas (“Score”), a visit from the composer’s daughter Jamie Bernstein Thomas, and more.

“He was a natural choice,” says series producer Peter Lesser of The Egg, explaining that the Bernstein fest is the first in the venue’s new series of “Living Legacy” tributes to great artists from the state.  Lesser adds that it was easy to program a wide-ranging series of events, drawing on both local and national talent, because Bernstein’s influence stretches far beyond music and encompasses theater, dance and film.

“He managed to do a lot of different things well, (and) he didn’t have a lot of snobbery,” says Don Byron, a clarinetist and composer from New York City. “He always just showed that kind of openness to stuff, and then gave it all the same quality of effort.”

Byron will bring his jazz ensemble to Albany for a performance with the Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company.  Drawing on his deep knowledge of the Bernstein catalog, Byron selected mostly lesser-known songs and musical passages from shows like “Candide,” “West Side Story” and “Mass.” They will be performed in new arrangements with original choreography by Sinopoli.

Beyond his admiration of the music, Byron identifies with how Bernstein flourished in so many realms: Bernstein was an orchestra conductor who wrote successful Broadway shows; Byron is a black jazz musician who’s recorded klezmer material and writes chamber music.

“It’s about whether a person should be allowed to do this or that, or do this and that,” says Byron. Too often, “people feel betrayed by artists who go from one genre or style to another.”

The master was known to struggle with the kinds of conflicts Byron identifies. Besides his effort to break down the walls between the worlds of high art and popular entertainment, there was his desire to be both a conductor and public figure, and the need to write and compose in solitude. The constraints of time only added to the pressure.

All this plus the profusion of ideas that filled Bernstein’s head will be brought to the stage Friday night in “Score.” The 90-minute one-man show, drawn entirely from Bernstein’s own writings, was conceived by director Ann Bogart of the New York theater group Siti Company, and adapted by playwright Jocelyn Clarke.

“It’s one thing to hear the work of an inspiring giant, it’s another to meet him,” says Tom Nelis, who plays Bernstein. “This is an opportunity to be in the room with him speaking about his ideas.” Portraying the legendary man, Nelis says, “is an amazing, caffeinated experience.”

The inclusion of the Albany Symphony Orchestra in the Bernstein festival was a happy accident: Its program, a “Romeo and Juliet” evening, was scheduled long before The Egg announced its plans. “It just fell into place for us,” says Lesser.

Along with “West Side Story” and Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet,” the ASO will true to form also present the world premiere of a new work by Daron Hagen. The piece is a double concerto for Jeffrey Khaner, principal flutist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Sara Sant’Ambrogio, cellist of the Eroica Trio. It draws thematic inspiration from Shakespeare, and musical inspiration from Bernstein.

Sing the first two notes of that tune in your head (Ma-ri ). The distance or interval between those notes is known as a tritone something that standard musical instruction commands composers to avoid at all costs. Thus, Bernstein’s profligate use of tritones throughout the song (“Maria, Maria, Maria”) is quite audacious.

Hagen goes a step further by basing his entire concerto on the tritone. “The entire score of `West Side Story’ evolves from a tritone, and that little nuclear reactor fires my whole piece,” says the composer, who received informal composition and conducting lessons with Bernstein in the late 1980s.

“In my life, he just represented the musical equivalent of very, very pure air … a level of excellence and dedication and commitment to which one can aspire as a musician,” says Hagen.

Yet another fresh perspective on Bernstein is in store with “The Bernstein Beat,” a family program featuring excerpts from numerous works. It will be performed by the Empire State Youth Orchestra with narration by Jamie Bernstein Thomas, who is the co-author of the script. (She’s also a songwriter, but keeps her works tightly under wraps.)

“The way we went about writing this concert was to use the subject of rhythm as our theme. That automatically steers you to all the jumpiest Bernstein music,” she says. “I give (the kids) permission at the top of the concert to jump around and squirm in their seats to the music. I am personally incapable of sitting still while my dad’s music is playing.”

Bernstein Thomas regularly narrates “The Bernstein Beat” in concerts across the country, and keeps apprised of the myriad Bernstein recordings, performances and tributes. But his continued ascension into the pantheon of artistic greats has almost made her do a double take.

“I guess I just didn’t see it coming that he was going to be viewed in retrospect as one of the big personas of the 20th century … (but) that’s how they talk about him,” says Bernstein Thomas.  “I knew he was terrific, but it seems to be going to the other level of reverence, and that’s a surprise.”

Originally published in the Times Union, January 13, 2005.

Also available in Artists & Activists: Making Culture in New York’s Capital Region.