Discography

Open Book

Release Date

2017

Record Label

Palmetto Records

Track Listing

1. The Orb
2. Whisper Not
3. Zingaro
4. Through the Forest
5. Plainsong
6. Eronel
7. And so It Goes

Notes

I have been playing jazz for more than forty years. Today, I find that the best state of mind to be in when I sit down at the piano is “let’s see what happens”. I have discovered that jazz is not nearly as much about playing what you know, but musically going to those places you have never been before. When I first started out, it was scary to think this way – but with experience, I have become very comfortable with the freedom that comes from simply playing from phrase to phrase.

Through The Forest is an example of improvising with no safety net or preconceived ideas – I just went wherever it took me until it felt right to arrive at a musical and emotional destination. The other selections on this album have structures: melody, harmonic progression and forms. But I delight in obscuring those structures so that each performance becomes a continuous musical expression from variation to variation – musical freedom within limits, with a song that I love as my subject. Thank you for listening with open ears.

Fred Hersch