DATE: Wednesday, October 8, 1997            TAG: 9710090854

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E7   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Music Review 

SOURCE: BY DAVID SIMPSON, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   57 lines

HERSCH TRIO EXCELS AT CRAFTY MEDDLING

FRED HERSCH. Frrrred Herrrrsch. Fredh Ersch.

That's the typographical equivalent of what jazz pianist Fred Hersch does with a tune. He rearranges. He reharmonizes. He changes tempos and time signatures, lengthens notes, shortens rests - whatever it takes to make a song his own.

Monday night at Old Dominion University, no tune was safe from his meddling. That, we hasten to add, is a good thing. Hersch makes you listen with fresh ears.

Thus the torchy ballad ``You Don't Know What Love Is'' and the syrupy Doris Day number ``Once I Had a Secret Love'' were revved up to roaring Formula I speeds. ``Every Time We Say Goodbye'' was reborn with newly emphasized phrases. Sonny Rollins' ``Doxy'' crawled. Even Hersch's own ``Swamp Thang'' - from a brand new album, mind you - was altered to fit the plodding title character.

Imaginative arrangements are one thing. They wouldn't have meant much without the high-level performance given by these rare musicians.

Hersch is such an accomplished and tasteful pianist that he can convey his ideas through a myriad devices. Serving as a virtual extension of his creative power were his bass player, Scott Colley, and drummer, Jeff Hirshfield.

On a dreamy ``My Funny Valentine,'' Hersch sent a five-note motif cascading from the upper register, then built to an increasingly complex tangle of chords before resolving the tension with a simple, spare passage.

On Billy Strayhorn's ``Rain Check,'' done partly in 3/4 time, Hersch struck dark, Dukelike chords, and Colley plucked out a swift bass solo. Hirshfield cooked behind them with his finely wrought drumwork.

Another Strayhorn piece, ``Passion Flower,'' rose through a series of chromatic piano figures to reach a climax of thundering tremolos.

On ``Secret Love,'' the pianist laid his left hand in his lap and played his solo in single-note lines with his right.

``The Nearness of You,'' built on delicate piano arpeggios, was a lovely circumlocution that avoided the melody until the end.

On Thelonious Monk's ``Work,'' the trio captured the cockeyed essence of the crazed piano genius. Hersch banged out delightfully off-kilter chords while Colley slapped strings and Hirshfield whacked rims.

Colley shone with a well-constructed solo on ``You Don't Know What Love Is.'' Broken octaves from Hersch's right hand added colors to Jimmy Rowles' mystical masterpiece ``The Peacocks.''

Dark-bearded and bespectacled, Hersch wore the jazzman's jacketless uniform of blacks and grays. At the keyboard he registered emotion only through the occasional grimace; the rest he poured into his playing.

Colley, bald and goateed, alternately wrestled and caressed his double bass. Hawk-nosed Hirshfield, his hands a blur at the drum kit, glared at a spot on the wall like a gimlet-eyed gunslinger.

The players clearly savored their musical flights. On several occasions Hersch lovingly held on to his final piano chord so that the tones hung crystalline in the air, until at last he lifted his foot from the pedal and they vanished.

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