The Sunday Times Magazine featured a rather definitive profile (4,500 words!) of jazz composer/pianist Fred Hersch. Writer David Hadjdu (author of the Billy Strayhorn biography “Lush Life”) calls Fred’s music, “luxurious, free-flowing, unashamedly gorgeous” and shows how it’s beauty has been out of step with the traditionalist currents of jazz but also prophetic of a new trend just arriving....

“Whitman and his universal message of love and tolerance and embracing real freedom needs to be heard,” says the gay jazz pianist and composer Fred Hersch, discussing his new recording “Leaves of Grass” (Palmetto). The disc features musical settings of the great gay poet Walt Whitman and coincides with the 150th anniversary of the first publication of the landmark collection “Leaves of Grass.” “Just as Whitman...

It would be easy to say that 14 years after the death of Leonard Bernstein, the legendary American composer, conductor and educator casts a long shadow.  But sunsets, darkness and shadows are just not the right metaphors.  Bernstein is still a star, and his glowing light seems stronger than ever. Some evidence: Almost 50 years after its premiere, “West Side Story” receives an average of 300 productions a year...