Good Things Happen Slowly: A Life In and Out of Jazz

Jazz could not contain Fred Hersch. His meteoric rise as a talented session pianist–one who played with the giants of the 20th century in the autumn of their careers, including Art Farmer, Joe Henderson, and more– blossomed further in the nineties and beyond into a compositional genius that defied the boundaries of bop, sweeping in elements of pop, classical, and folk to create a wholly new music. Good Things Happen Slowly is a memoir, but it is also more than that. It’s the story of the first openly gay, HIV-positive jazz player, and a deep look into the cloistered, largely African-American jazz culture that made such a status both transgressive and groundbreaking. It is a remarkable, at times lyrical evocation of New York in the twilight days of post-Stonewall hedonism, and a powerfully brave narrative of the illness that led to Hersch’s two-month-long medically induced coma in 2007, from which he would emerge to create some of the finest, most direct and emotionally compelling music of his career. —- ISBN: 9781101904343