Fred Hersch's "Breath By Breath"

Fred Hersch (b. 1955) is part of the last generation of jazzers to learn their trade the old-school way, on the stand from the old guys (almost always guys, back then), before the flowering of jazz academia. Having spent those halcyon '70s days acquiring my Jazz 101 knowledge (and focusing on post-Kind of Blue developments), I remained unaware of Hersch's achievements until reading Ethan Iverson's interview with him a few years back. 

This new release is of particular interest to me because of its origins in Hersch's longtime practice of mindfulness meditation, which I took up this year -- at first via remote livestreams, but gradually working to integrate the practice into my daily activities. As Hersch says, "Meditation is not about emptying your mind; it's about observation. The phrase I like to use is, 'relax, allow and observe.' When I meditate it’s about recognizing sensations or thoughts as they come in and out, observing them and realizing that they're just phenomena." It's a useful tool when one is struggling with a mind that won't stop racing in response to the torrent of stimuli with which we're deluged daily. 

For the sessions that produced Breath By Breath (due for a January 7 release on Palmetto), Hersch's trio (currently bassist Drew Gress and drummer Jochen Rueckert) was joined in the studio by the Crosby Street String Quartet so the players could respond to each other in real time. There's precedent for this in Hersch's oeuvre; for the 2010 multimedia theater piece My Coma Dreams, inspired by two months he spent in a medically induced coma (after which he had to relearn how to play the piano, among other things), his trio was augmented by four horns and three strings, as well as a singing actor. (Hersch has also used a large ensemble with vocalists to perform his settings of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.)

Some of Hersch's string writing has the lush, romantic feel of '40s movie soundtracks -- and indeed, the composer pays homage to his Romantic roots with the closing "Pastorale." The eight-part "Sati Suite" has movements which refer to different aspects of meditative experience, but don't follow the sequence of a sit. On "Awakened Heart," the strings set the stage for the lyrical warmth of Hersch's solo voice (in the Bill Evans-Paul Bley manner), then on the title track, they frame solo statements by bassist Gress and the leader. Pointillistic pizzicatos create tension on "Monkey Mind," while "Rising, Falling" has the flow of the rhythm of breath it represents. The elements fuse most seamlessly on "Mara," named for the god that tempted Buddha, and the waltz "Worldly Winds." 

While I'm not one who likes to listen to music while I sit, I'll be happy to have Breath By Breath on hand to set the mood for contemplative days.