Fred Hersch - Open Book

I was on tour with my trio in Asia in the fall of 2016. On a day off for the band, I was set to play two solo concerts at the lovely JCC Art Center Concert Hall in Seoul. Still suffering from jet lag, I went onstage at 4pm. As I sat down, I was feeling somehow different. Then I just started to improvise whatever came to me - for almost 20 minutes - with no particular agenda or pre-conceived structure.When I was sent the recording a couple of weeks later, I knew I had something special, but didn't have enough material for a complete album. In April of 2017, I went back to the same hall and recorded music that I thought would fit with this improvisation, now called Through The Forest. This is the album that resulted from those experiences in Seoul.