Label: ECM Records, 2024

Personnel - Fred Hersch: piano.

Pianist and composer Fred Hersch, a 17-time Grammy nominee with collaborations alongside jazz legends like Art Framer and Gary Burton, possesses a unique ability to emphasize beautiful melodies within sophisticated harmonizations as well as explore uncharted territory in the moment. These qualities are on full display in Silent, Listening, an introspective solo album that reasserts his stature as a prime pianist with a broad artistic vision.

Presenting brilliantly crafted nocturnals, the set begins with Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn’s “Star-Crossed Lovers”, whose narrative process involves poignancy, reflection, and exquisite beauty. Hersch’s original compositions, like “Night Delight” and “Akrasia”, are equally captivating, where something is always transpiring, even in the quietest of the moments. The former, hazy and secretive, immerses us in a baffling, inconclusive dream, while the latter dreams up mysterious shadows, with Hersh anchoring austere pulsations on the lower register while coloring bucolic impressionistic landscapes several steps higher in pitch.

Breaking away from convention, the pianist explores new realms and finds new spaces on openly improvised numbers like “Aeon”, where he traverses the keyboard to express intriguing findings, and “Volon”, whose prevailing stillness is interrupted by sudden bursts of movement. On the other hand, “Little Song”, originally written for his duo collaboration with Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava, introduces a palpable rhythm and harmony into a streamlined musical form.

The music continues to soar with inspired renditions of Sigmund Romberg’s “Softly As In a Morning Sunrise”, which Hersch immediately associates with saxophonist Sonny Rollins, and Alec Wilder’s haunting ballad “Winter of My Discontent”. This is where the most straightforward lyricism touches the soul.

Hersch always evokes sincerity and emotion with his piano playing, and Silent, Listening is one of his most worthy solo albums in recent years.