Music Review: Jazz pianist Fred Hersch creates subdued, lovely colors on 'Silent, Listening'

• Jazz pianist Fred Hersch fully embraces the freedom that comes with improvisation on his solo album “Silent, Listening,” spontaneously composing and performing tunes that are often without melody, meter or form. Listening to them can be challenging and rewarding. It’s chamber jazz — closer to classical music than the blues — that will be familiar to fans of ECM Records founder Manfred Eicher, who produced.