What The Critics Say About Fred Hersch
- “A pristine pianist with a poet’s soul--a pair of qualities that combine to especially dazzling effect”
Joan Anderman, The Boston Globe
- “A master who plays it his way.” Ben Ratliff, The New York Times
- “Hersch’s work has developed an intensity of intelligence and emotional directness unparalleled
among his peers.” Steve Futterman, The New Yorker
- “Hersch has a track record of staying true to himself and making records that are worth listening to
and owning.” David Zych, Jazz Times
- “There isn’t a false note--technically or emotionally--on the album, a tribute to Hersch’s unerring ability to play music that is as intelligent as it is touching, as virtuosic as it is swinging.”
Don Heckman, The Los Angeles Times
- “Solo piano is a damn near impossible feat, yet Mr. Hersch seems born to it.”
Joseph Hooper, The New York Observer
- “A brilliant technician, a thoughtful, elegant improviser and an artist with a curious ear.”
Fernando Gonzalez, The Miami Herald
- “Hersch combines a crystalline touch with soaring lyricism and breathtaking harmonic
sophistication.” Andrew Gilbert, The San Jose Mercury News
- “The beauty of Hersch’s playing lies in how he honors Monk’s dictums while avoiding Monk’s solutions. Only the most substantial and self-assured of players can speak their own minds while using the words of others.” Steve Futterman, Jazziz
- “One of the most prolific and thoughtful players around.” Josef Woodard, Entertainment Weekly
- “On up-tempo numbers...Hersch reveals an exuberant polyphony and a killer left hand that brings jazz piano legend Art Tatum to mind.” Jay Weiser, The Advocate
- “Fred Hersch plays the piano with great warmth, technical assurance and imagination. The album...is a real tour de force with sonorous chordal climaxes, jagged left-hand fill-ins independently from the right--tremendous stuff.” Pat Hawes, Jazz Journal International
- “Hersch has arrived at the forefront of modern jazz pianists.” Larry Nager, Cincinnati Enquirer
- “One of his generation’s most gifted interpreters of the American songbook.”
John Murph, The Washington Post
- “...a poet of a pianist.” Whitney Balliett, The New Yorker
- “Hersch has become a wise player, with a melodic sense that makes his most technical passages accessible yet uncompromising...an artist enamored of the gestures of music.”
Sylvia Chan, The San Francisco Bay Guardian
- “By virtue of his extraordinarily graceful, harmonically and rhythmically intriguing piano playing, Hersch has shown himself to be one of the small handful of brilliant musicians of his generation.” Fred Bouchard, Downbeat
- “Hersch's nearly perfect piano playing...has a magical sense of time and space. He lives the song.” Bradley Parker-Sparrow, CD Review
- “...a pianist of unquestioned distinction...his piano solos revealed bottomless reservoirs of imagination and sensitivity.” Ernie Santosuosso, The Boston Globe
- “...Hersch steps into the front rank of today's pianists.” Neil Tesser, USA Today
- “...the broad, full-bodied piano playing of Fred Hersch...provides an open excitement that is exceptionally effective.” John S. Wilson, The New York Times
- “...a constantly inventive soloist.” Leonard Feather, The Los Angeles Times
- “Hersch is masterful--a strong yet controlled keyboard touch, a knowing use of the full keyboard and an impeccable rhythmic and harmonic sense.” Phil Elwood, The San Francisco Examiner
- “Hersch has arrived. It shows in his repertoire, his touch, his sound, and his growing audience.” Stuart Troup, New York Newsday
- “...one of the leading lights of this generation's pianists.” Fred Bouchard, Jazz Times
- “...all the visionary eclecticism of Miles Davis or John Coltrane in earlier eras of jazz innovation...original compositions that are a rare and disarming combination of oddball ideas and dizzying beauty...” David Hajdu, The Hollywood Reporter
- “...showed himself to be an astute, responsive, and authoritative player...consistently inventive.” Richard M. Sudhalter, The New York Post
- “...Fred Hersch is a gas!” Don Nelson, The New York Daily News
