Fred Hersch Interview Transcript (Conducted by Travis Wesley on December 30 th, 2012) Travis: Could you talk a little bit about where you re from originally and how you got started playing the piano? Fred: I m from Cincinnati. There was a piano in the house, and I went to it pretty naturally. I was fourish, five maybe and played by ear. I took some class lessons at around five, but it was clear that I was pretty advanced, so I started studying privately. Classical music. I always liked to improvise even though it didn t sound like jazz it sounded like classical music. Around the age of twelve I decided that I really wasn t cut out to be a classical pianist. I didn t really have the discipline or want to clock the hours or learn big pieces and memorize them, so I spent seventh grade through twelfth grade doing all kinds of other things. I played the violin, I accompanied choirs, I sang, I picked up pop tunes by ear and we had a jazz band. It wasn t that sophisticated at first but my senior year we got a more ambitious director and the music got a little more interesting including some nice arrangements of standards. I started playing at parties, and started to learn to use a fake book. Then, I went away to college in Grinnell, Iowa because I couldn t really decide what I wanted to do. In Iowa I encountered some people who really knew much more about jazz. I started to do a lot of listening and reading books and I also played some chamber music, which in a weird way convinced me that I enjoyed playing music with other people more than just practicing myself. In the winter of 73, 74, I sat in at some jazz clubs in Cincinnati when I was home on vacation and really got the jazz bug. I dropped out of school and started playing locally and buying lots of records, figuring out tunes by ear. I didn t have a jazz piano teacher then, I just sort of figured things out in my own way. I did a lot of listening and got a lot of professional experience in Cincinnati for about a year and a half or so. I attended New England Conservatory because Jaki Byard was there, and I really admired his playing with Mingus and Eric Dolphy and his own ensembles. I studied with him, and also a classical teacher and graduated in 1977, then moved to New York. Travis: I was checking out an interview you did in June of 2011 with Molly Sheridan. You had mentioned (I thought it was interesting) that you had never really taken any Jazz piano lessons. Fred: Well I took some with Jaki for sure, but I m more or less self- taught as a jazz pianist. Travis: Sure, well a lot of the great players were and are so, and it was originally an aural art to begin with. I was interested in that comment and was hoping you could elaborate on how you learned aurally? Fred: Yeah, I mean some of it you just learn on the bandstand. In Cincinnati, there was never any rehearsal. Nobody played original music and there were no music
stands on the bandstand. You just had to know tunes - and you know the best way to get better is to play with people who are better than you. I was very lucky that a lot of the older players were very kind to me and let me play. I m kind of the last part of the generation that learned by doing it and not necessarily by going to school for it. When I moved to New York I served a lot of notable apprenticeships. Art Farmer, Joe Henderson... and Sam Jones really taught me about jazz rhythm and swing in a very profound way because he (Jones) was one of the most swinging bass players in history. I got a chance to play a lot of piano and bass duos with incredible bassists and started to play my own little trio gigs. By the time I was 29 OR 30 I made my first album, and was moving towards not necessarily being a full- time bandleader but at least making a step in that direction. Travis: This is really a two- part question: who, in your opinion, are some of the most notable early jazz rhythm sections, and why? Fred: Well, I think certainly the Count Basie Rhythm section. Count Basie and Freddie Green, that was real rhythm section with a capital R. I mean, those guys, they swung hard. Duke Ellington, who I think is an underrated pianist, had various rhythm sections but the way he used them, as part of the ensemble was pretty notable. Most of the early piano trios were kind of like piano solos with rhythm accompaniment. I put Teddy Wilson in that category, certainly Erroll Garner and Oscar Peterson. I particularly like Earl Hines as a solo pianist better than with a rhythm section. Same with Fats Waller. I think they re more notable as solo pianists. If you re looking at the modern piano trio, there are two really polar- opposite pinnacles in a way. One is the Ahmad Jamal trio with Israel Crosby and Vernell Fournier, which is also kind of piano solo with rhythm accompaniment, but very, very cleverly arranged and unbelievably swinging. Ahmad s touch is unbelievable and his whole concept is really strong. And then on the other end, the Bill Evans, Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian rhythm section, which was more conversational. What Evans did and to some extent what Ahmad Jamal did, is bring the left hand up in the register of the piano. You know if you listen to Bud Powell, his left hand is lower on the keyboard. And, so there isn t as much room for the bass. Of course Bud Powell was awesome. But, I think moving the left hand up and using the higher ends of the piano kind of liberated the bass a little bit. I mean, great rhythm sections that influenced me, certainly the Miles rhythm section with Wynton Kelly. Even though there were a couple of different drummers, Philly Joe and Jimmy Cobb. The bassist was usually Paul Chambers, and he had such a beautiful time feel and was really easy to understand. Not that complicated of a player. That was an early influence. And in a way you can trace somebody even like Herbie Hancock to both Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly only of course with a more sophisticated harmonic sense. Just like you can trace Chick Corea to early McCoy Tyner and Latin music. But somebody like Ahmad Jamal and Erroll Garner just kind of came out of nowhere. You can tell if somebody s trying to imitate Erroll Garner in three seconds. He was just very singular. And Ahmad Jamal as well. They were completely unique.
Travis: If we could back up for a moment. The first rhythm section you mentioned was Count Basie s. While there were some things happening elsewhere at that time, in the 20s and the 30s, this is where the music really starts to swing (with Basie). Could you elaborate a little more on Count s rhythm section? The chemistry that you hear and perhaps why this would be the first rhythm section you cited? Fred: Well, in a way that Ahmad Jamal s rhythm section [sort of] liberated the piano, I think the strong groove that the bass drums and guitar laid, meant that Basie was free to just make comments. He really didn t have to play time that much, he just sort of had to drop what I would call comments, the right stuff in the right space. Duke did that as well, although sometimes both of them would get into a little bit of the two- handed thing. They were both very capable Stride pianists. But, the piano was able to use its upper register as more of a comment device than necessarily a driving device. Travis: This idea of space that we (as jazz musicians, students and educators) talk so much about today, I wonder if these are some of the earliest examples of how to use space the right way. Fred: Yeah, yeah. Travis: I m curious if you ve given any thought to the newer rhythm sections and concepts. I m sure you re familiar with Mehldau? Fred: He was a student of mine. Travis: No kidding...i didn t know that. Fred: For a year and a half. Travis: I ve seen him play recently with Joshua Redman here in Bloomington, IL, and it was one of the best shows I ve seen. I m seeing a lot of interesting things happening with the rhythm section. For example, Mehldau has done some things with his trio: taking more of a compositional approach and covering different artists like Radiohead and Paul Simon for example. I see other successful trios going in a similar direction such as E.S.T. and the Bad Plus. I m curious to get your feedback on their music and approach. Fred: Ethan Iverson (the Bad Plus) was a student of mine for two years. Travis: I didn t know that either! Anyways, I was hoping you could comment on some of their advances. Fred: Well, Brad certainly has an active left hand, which is something that maybe I helped him develop a little bit. Certainly he s very comfortable in odd meters and dense, post- romantic harmony. The grooves are a little more rock- like, although he
can certainly swing. I m not that familiar with E.S.T. but I m very familiar with the Bad Plus, which is a combination of a very brainy piano player and a rock drummer, with a very, very good bass player. They ve done everything from The Rite of Spring, to Blondie as well as their own music. So I think repertoire- wise everything is kind of a mish- mash. But then there are also rhythm sections like the Jason Moran Bandwagon, which is a really unusual rhythm section with the electric bass that plays a pretty nonfunctional role. Vijay Iyer who is not necessarily my cup of tea but it s very rhythmically ambitious. He s a math geek and from his Indian heritage, a lot of rhythms that are coming from that complex Indian rhythmic tradition. There are a lot of pianists out there who I find pretty interesting who are maybe not that well known here. There s what I call the sort of Post- Steve Coleman tradition: very complex rhythms and things that are not necessarily song form, things that are generated by cells and motives and rhythms as opposed to what we might refer to as some sort of tune. Brad is still sort of in the world of tunes and somebody like Vijay is probably not. So, there are some interesting pianists out there. Travis: There was an interview with Duke Ellington in the 1960s when he was in Sweden with his big band and he was asked about the future of music. Ellington stated that the genres that exist (i.e. classical, jazz, rock etc...) would cease to exist 40, 50, 60 years from now, and that there would either be good music or bad music. And as it relates specifically to the jazz trio, we have a number of groups obscuring the musical lines if you will between what you refer to as a tune- based approach to more of a compositional one. I was wondering if you might comment on this as it relates specifically to the jazz trio and to the musical state of things today. Do you feel there is a need for the modern- day jazz musician to continue to push these boundaries? Fred: I don think there s any have to s at all. There s room for a lot of different players. There are a lot of players who still live in the world of tunes. Like in my case, I ve covered some Beatles tunes and some Joni Mitchell tunes, which are tunes that have resonance for me. I don t necessarily think Radiohead has relevance for me because its not music that I grew up with. I think that as younger and younger musicians are coming out of hip- hop, say Robert Glasper, they re bringing that into jazz, into their rhythm sections and into their concepts. I learned in the aural tradition and when I wanted to hear, say, Ornette Coleman, I had to sit in front of a stereo. And now you can listen to Ornette Coleman when you re doing your email, when you re on your treadmill or when you re in your car. Now, when people download a track though, they don t get the information that we got from reading liner notes and LP s. So that sense of the history is lost. So a lot of the young pianists, even the ones I work with, are sidestepping the tradition, in a way, and the emphasis is more on their own original music. They don t feel like they need to do anything else, even though they could probably play standards if they were asked to. It s just not something they want to record, or play in particular depth. I come from a position of, if you re going to play a standard, you have to know the words,
something about the song, and I take that a little more seriously. But then again, it s where I come from and it s not for everybody. Travis: You mentioned that when you learn a tune, that it s important to know the lyrics. Can you elaborate on what that does for you as a player? Fred: Well, it helps you phrase the melody, it helps you connect with it emotionally. I just happen to be a fan of really good melodies. It s something that I love in any kind of music. But if you re talking about rhythm sections of course you have to look at all the Miles Davis rhythm sections, the Red Garland one, the Wynton Kelly one, certainly the Herbie (Hancock), Ron (Carter), Tony (Williams), which many people consider the sort of acme of creative rhythm section playing and, it s pretty easy to make that case. The John Coltrane rhythm section. These are rhythm sections that are iconic and very important. Mingus and Danny Richmond, the way they played together kind of a magic combination. There have been a lot of very special rhythm sections throughout history, and I think generally that the bass has the most control over the rhythm section. Certainly in the Herbie, Ron, Tony configuration, Ron had more influence in shaping where things went than Tony or Herbie. The bass is the focal point, the bass has Control of the beat. You know, I d rather play with a great bassist and an okay drummer than the other way around, in terms of the point of the sound and where he places the beat. You also have to investigate is whether one person is playing behind the beat or front of the beat, and if one person is on top. If you re going to study rhythm sections this is what you have to listen for. You know, why is it swinging? Is the bass player laid back and the drummer really on the edge? Or are they both on the edge? It s just a chemical thing. I ve had more or less five different trios. I m of course really happy with my current trio. I feel really comfortable with the guys that I play with, but they ve all been really different in terms of sound and tone and at the times that I ve been playing with them, they ve been what I ve needed for me not just on a musical level, but on a personal level too. You travel with people, you spend a lot of time with them and it s got to be people you feel good around. That s part of it too. So as my music s evolved, my tastes and needs in my rhythm section have evolved too. I think that s certainly what happened to Miles. Not to compare myself to Miles, but he evolved. In the end he had three guitars, and a keyboard and different configurations. So, he went from the traditional quintet to all sorts of permutations. At one point he had Chick and Keith playing together. There s all kinds of things that add to the texture of what he was going for. Travis: What sort of artistic considerations or principles do you have when it comes to playing with your own rhythm section and what do you look for in a bassist or drummer? Fred: For a bassist, they have to have a real sound. Not just an amp sound, but they have to get a sound out of the instrument that sounds like wood. They have to really understand the nuts and bolts of jazz harmony. There are a lot of bass players who don t understand chord substitutions. They just sort of play the changes they know.
Then I ll telegraph an easy kind of a tri- tone substitution and they either don t hear it or can t play it. So I require somebody who understands harmonic options and I also want somebody who is versatile. With drummers a lot of it is obviously where they put the beat, how they use space, the sound they get, touch. And I ve learned that although you may have two great players, it doesn t necessarily work chemically. I ve played with so many of the great, great rhythm section players, bassists and drummers. I ve been very privileged. There s really a very short list of people I haven t played with. Everybody you play with, you learn something. They make you play differently and that s why I play jazz and not Chopin or something. I want to be surprised. And that s the other thing - I want a rhythm section that s going to be creative. I want them to think compositionally and understand the material in a deep way, but I m not looking for slaves! I want people to add to the mixture of the music. Because when you re playing with a trio and all really playing together and composing the music simultaneously, it s really exciting because you re going somewhere you haven t been, and all three of you are going there, and it s really cool. Those are the moments that I live for. And sometimes the other moments I live for is just something that feels good and is fun. Fun is an important factor in music!