The piece uses Hirsch's recent severe illness, and miraculous recovery, as the fulcrum for its portrait of the artist.
Giant Steps: The Survival of a Great Jazz Pianist
...Early in 2008, the H.I.V. virus migrated to his brain, and Hersch developed AIDS-related dementia. He lived for a time in mental and physical seclusion, hallucinating under the delusion that he had the power to control time and space and that everyone around him was plotting his demise. In fact, he came so close to dying that his paranoia seemed practically justified. At his sickest, late that year, Hersch fell into a coma and remained unconscious for a full two months. While incapacitated, he was bound to his bed in St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York. He lost renal function and had to undergo regular dialysis, and he required a tracheotomy. He was unable to consume food or liquids of any kind, including water, for eight months. He could not swallow a thing or speak above a faint whisper. As a result of his prolonged unconsciousness and inactivity, he lost nearly all motor function in his hands and could not hold a pencil, let alone play the piano.
Today, at age 54, after many months of rehabilitation and therapy, grueling effort, effective medical care, an almost irrationally defiant refusal to accept his problems as anything less than temporary distractions from his music and a considerable amount of good luck, Hersch has achieved full recovery. Last year, he released two albums: a concert performance of his Pocket Orchestra CD, issued in the spring, and a solo piano record, “Fred Hersch Plays Jobim,” released (to immediate acclaim) in the summer. ....
Here's Brigas Nunca Mais - from the post-coma Jobim recording.
