Whirl

iTunes Review

The pianist and composer Fred Hersch, who came up playing with such figures as Joe Henderson and Stan Getz, has collaborated with numerous artists on a variety of interesting albums including Leaves of Grass, where he set the poetry of Walt Whitman to music, Live at the Jazz Standard, which features the Fred Hersch Pocket Orchestra, and Haunted Heart, an album by Renée Fleming that finds the opera singer covering pop material. Hersch was extremely ill in 2008 and spent two months in a coma, but he recovered and has continued recording and playing live. Hersch and his rhythm section — bassist John Hébert and drummer Eric McPherson — are masterful on this set of ten covers and originals. The group has a distinctive, finely interlocked sound, and Whirl is an album of great feeling, whether the threesome is interpreting a ballad (“When Your Lover Has Gone”) or swinging hard (the title track). Hersch’s lyricism is gorgeous throughout, and be sure to check out McPherson’s swirl of percussion on “Sad Poet” and Hébert’s delightful bass on “Still Here,” a piece dedicated to Wayne Shorter.