Jazz Telepathy: Fred Hersch and Julian Lage

March 10, 2014 by Scott Timberg 
LAST night I was lucky enough to catch jazz pianist Fred Hersch and guitarist Julian Lage in the kind of duet setting that captured not only what’s best about jazz, but about chamber music and “Americana” as well. For two chordal instruments to stay out of each others’ way is not easy, but this exceeded my high expectations, summoning memories of the legendary Bill Evans/Jim Hall collaborations such as Undercurrent. And while I expected low-key genius from Hersch, Lage knocked me out as well. (The two have a recent album, Free Flying.)

Hersch received some mainstream attention for beating back the ravages of AIDS a few years back — music critic David Hajdu wrote this wonderful piece on him in 2010 — and because of his mentorship of pianists Brad Mehldau and Ethan Iverson of the Bad Plus. Hajdu calls his work “fiercely independent” and “a manifesto of contemporary jazz,” and quoted Mehldau this way:

Some people think I sound like Fred. That’s because Fred was a major influence on me and on a lot of the players around today. Fred’s musical world is a world where a lot of the developments of jazz history and all of music history come together in a very contemporary way. His style has a lot to do with thinking as an individual, and it has a lot to do with beauty. I wouldn’t be doing what I do if I hadn’t learned from Fred, and I think that’s true of quite a few other people.

Sunday night’s concert, put on by the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, reminded me of the power of musical communication, as the two players weaved in and out of each others’ harmonies, as Hersch played muted chords and Lage, typically ringing single-note lines. One number, “Down Home,” was dedicated to Bill Frisell, whose merging of jazz with country feeling was much in evidence through the evening, and another, “Stealthiness,” to the late, great Jim Hall. (Hersch praised him as “an understated, sneaky kind of player,” and Lage captured his spirit.)
Read more: http://www.artsjournal.com/culturecrash/2014/03/jazz-telepathy-fred-hersch-and-julian-lage.html