Drew Gress

Passion Flower-The Music Of Billy Strayhorn

Fred Hersch · 1996

Softly

Roseanna Vitro · 1993

Forward Motion

Fred Hersch Group, The · 1991

American Love Song

Dick Sisto · 1995

Tom Rainey's name now travels with free improvisation. But the paper trail here runs the other way: from Forward Motion (1991) to Passion Flower (1996), it is mostly standards work in Fred Hersch's group — the avant-garde drummer's documented decade is a piano trio.

Passion Flower-The Music Of Billy Strayhorn

Fred Hersch · 1996

From Hollywood

Colors Of Jazz · 1991

Leaves Of Grass

Fred Hersch Ensemble, The - Walt Whitman · 2005

Yama

Art Farmer with Joe Henderson · 1979

By 1979 Fred Hersch had no records under his own name. On Yama that year he turns up as a mid-twenties unknown in the small print of a date led by two established horn players — years before anyone bought a record for his name.