Fred Hersch on "Selling New York"

"Selling New York" is a realty reality show on HGTV in which teams of realtors (no, I will not capitalize that word) show and try to sell very high-end properties. It's condo porn, plain and simple, but oh so tasty.

In Episode HSNY-107H, "Extra Special Spaces," agents drum up interest in a $13 million Soho loft by inviting top brokers to a charity event in the space. The evening includes a performance by the great jazz pianist/composer Fred Hersch. He's not mentioned by name or listed in the credits but there he is at a lovely old Steinway starting at the -03:29 mark, near the end of the show.

Watch closely and you can glimpse him earlier, standing around and chatting. He plays for about ten seconds.

Interview with Fred Hersh on jazz.com

I keep asking people who enjoy and follow jazz, "Do you know the website jazz.com?" and they give me blank looks. That has got to stop. Ted Gioia's site has become one of my favorites for many reasons. It's wide-ranging, articulate, well-edited, and well-written. It has a growing encyclopedia of jazz musicians, many, many reviews of individual jazz tracks (rather than review whole albums, jazz.com addresses tracks, an approach that makes sense in the age of digital downloads), a Visual Jazz section (jazz art), and some of the best interviews I have ever read. Including Ted Panken's with the great pianist Fred Hersch, posted May 19. A taste:

"I've used the analogy that what I do, or what jazz improvisation is, is if you take the analogy of a tune being like a glass mixing bowl, you can put rocks into it, take out the rocks, put a goldfish into it, take out the goldfish, put in jello, take out the jello—but the container stays the same size and it's transparent, but it's solid. That's what tunes are to me."