Ravinia 2019, Issue 3, Week 6

“I found this really cool language. I loved the culture, I loved the rhythm. I decided to make it my life’s work.” possession: He loans it out to gifted stu- dents who can’t afford their own piano. Currently, it’s with the third such young musician. Little Fred Hersch was, unsurprisingly, always drawn to the piano. Even during his early childhood, he says, “I would climb up on the piano bench and pick things out by ear,” everything from classical pieces to children’s music to the theme song from The Flintstones . Rec- ognizing that he had talent, his parents enrolled him in a piano class at age 5, which he quickly outgrew, and then solo lessons soon followed. “I got a very early education in music that’s fueled every- thing I’ve done since,” he says. “Between third and sixth grade, I did what a freshman or sophomore would do at a conservatory.” And when he discovered jazz in his late teens, “I found this really cool language. I loved the culture, I loved the rhythm. I decided to make it my life’s work.” He wasted no time, meeting older musicians from Cincinnati’s jazz scene when he was just 19. “It was a bunch of misfits,” Hersch recalls. “You know, people who hung out around the music, who were diverse in age and back- ground, in race, in income, in levels of addiction or not. If you could play and the cats approved of you, then you could be a member of this club, this society.” The misfits label applied to himself too, in large part because Hersch harbored the secret of his sexuality. He didn’t feel like he entirely fit in with the older guys, who talked about women, cars, and baseball; neither did he fit in with the gay guys his age, who lip-synched songs by Barbra Streisand and Bette Midler. The journey to discern where he be- longed was a long one, continuing well into his New York years. “Just because two people like jazz, or two people are gay, or two people are Jewish, that doesn’t mean they’re going to be best buddies,” Hersch observes. But he began to find community in both worlds—and, eventually, that special person who shared both of these specific traits. “Obviously there’s a small percentage of people who are LGBTQ—whether that’s five percent or eight percent is debatable,” he says. “If you say creative instrumental jazz music is [attractive to] about half a percent of people who listen to music, well, half a percent of five per- cent is not a lot of people.” Nevertheless, Hersch eventually met Scott Morgan at the New York jazz club Birdland. The two had a commitment ceremony in 2004, which was even documented in the New York Times . (Encouraged and accompanied by Hersch, Morgan made his recording debut in 2016, at age 53, showing off his baritone vocals on Songs of Life .) That’s not the only close relation- ship Hersch enjoys. Although he often performs solo, as he’ll do at Ravinia, he also has a good thing going—in a mu- sical way—with two key collaborators: bassist John Hébert and drummer Eric McPherson, who round out the current Fred Hersch Trio. (July marks 10 years together for the threesome.) Hersch’s description of their musical connection, unsurprisingly, sounds a lot like some- one describing a romance. “It just kept feeling good, and then feeling better. It surprised me that it got better,” he says. That’s how it goes when you play im- provisational jazz as a unit. “It’s like any relationship: How do you decide to keep any relationship going? There has to be PREVIOUS SPREAD: MARK NISKANEN; THIS PAGE: VINCENT SOYEZ 28 RAVINIA MAGAZINE | JULY 1 – JULY 14, 2019