Mick Goodrick, Fred Hersch | "Feebles, Fables and Ferns"

Feebles, Fables and Ferns Captures a Rare One-Time Coming Together of Guitarist Mick Goodrick and Pianist Fred Hersch

The Expansive Grasp of Both Musicians’ Language and Expressive Abilities on Their Respective Instruments is to the Fore Throughout this Rich Program

Recorded in Hersch’s New York Studio in August 1988

Available June 19, 2026 via ECM

Feebles, Fables and Ferns captures a rare one-time coming together of luminaries Mick Goodrick and Fred Hersch, both active in Boston at the time, recorded in Hersch’s studio in New York, in August 1988. Looking back at the session almost four decades later, Hersch notes how “the highlight to me is just the level of ensemble playing. There was a lot of profound listening going on between the both of us.” The expansive grasp of both musicians’ language and expressive abilities on their respective instruments is to the fore throughout this rich program.

“Mick was a pretty modest guy. And he was very under-recorded,” Fred remembers. “I call him the guitar whisperer; He was very content to teach, be behind the scenes. That was kind of his way of doing things. And towards the end of the era of my recording studio, which was ca. 1983-88, I asked him to come down and record some duets with me. So he came to NYC and we made this duo thing and it just worked out on the spot.”

Goodrick was neither a very prolific composer nor did he record abundantly throughout his life, making each entry to his discography a rare window into his craft, and here his pioneering approach to guitar improvisation, which was influential to everyone from Lionel Loueke to Wolfgang Muthspiel and Julian Lage, is on full display. Lage, who studied under Goodrick, has noted how the guitarist “had an extraordinary way of unpacking problems by listening attentively and then offering organic and often surprising solutions. There was no limit to what he wanted to share.”

Hersch and Goodrick’s intimate dialogues lay bare the qualities that have earned both men a reputation as leading mentors in improvisation. Previously known compositions by the pianist and the guitarist appear in concentrated guises, with Goodrick’s album-title-lending “Feebles, Fables and Ferns” (recorded for his ECM date In Pas(s)ing ten years earlier) offering a focused glimpse at the playfully intertwined lines the two spin around each other on the go.

Hersch’s “Heartsong”, one of the pianist’s arguably most harmonically engaging originals, is a lyrical climax of the set, with the theme seamlessly passing back and forth between the two instruments. “You know, it’s interesting looking back at myself so many years ago,” says Hersch. “There are a lot of things that I still recognize in my playing today, but there’s also much that has changed and is fun to rediscover again now.”

Joining the originals are inspired passes at two Steve Swallow compositions (“Falling Grace” & “Amazing”), Grant Green’s “Out Of Nowhere”, “Soul Eyes” by Mal Waldron as well as a suite of spontaneous improvisations following each other on “Five Excursions”.

Fred: “Even though there’s some beautiful, intimate, quiet moments, there’s still a lot of energy. And there’s something very romantic about that unadorned, unembellished, just straight in, go-ahead-and-record-sound to it. We really were a very good match…”

Fred Hersch made his debut for ECM with Enrico Rava on the duo’s 2022 album The Song is You and their collaboration has been hailed as a summit meeting of two jazz masters. Stereophile magazine called the album “instantly essential”, saying, “both men are sentimentalists in the best sense, and both are lyrical players, which is what makes their pairing in The Song is You so captivating. The sound is breathtaking: spacious, natural, impeccably balanced, with glorious resonance and just enough of the sound of the room to add presence.”

Silent, Listening, Hersch’s major addition to the label’s distinguished line of solo piano recordings followed in 2024, with the French daily Le Monde noting that “with Fred Hersch, what stands out is interiority, subtlety, restraint. Yet beneath such apparent discretion bursts a raw sensuality—the very flesh of the music, its pulse: Silent, Listening offers fresh proof of this…” On the pianist’s third outing for the label The Surrounding Green (2025) Hersch can be heard alongside his longstanding colleagues Drew Gress on bass and Joey Baron on drums, with a programme of deeply attuned three-way-communication (“This offering by Hersch, Gress and Baron is engaging, ardent and otherwise splendid; it’s conceivable Manfred Eicher has found the great piano trio to anchor his catalogue for the foreseeable future.” – Downbeat).

“Mick Goodrick is somebody who really had an effect on me. At the time I was playing in Gary Burton’s band, he was the other guitar player, and he played with such incredible depth.“ – Pat Metheny

Mick Goodrick, hailed during his lifetime as “technically among the finest players around” by Downbeat magazine and called “an inconspicuous guru of jazz guitar” by WRTI’s David R. Adler, was a sought-after performer, composer and educator who profoundly impacted several generations of guitarists around the world. He first came to ECM as part of Gary Burton’s groups, joining the vibraphonist on his albums Ring (1974), Dreams So Real (1975) and Easy As Pie (1981). On the seminal Dreams So Real, the guitarist and Burton play the music of Carla Bley with Steve Swallow and Bob Moses as the rhythm section, as well as Pat Metheny on second guitar. At the time of its release, Melody Maker raved, “outside of his trail-blazing 1967 quartet, it’s the strongest line-up Burton has ever fronted,” also noting “its subtle strengths and sense of swing”.

In Pas(s)ing, his only leader-date for the label, saw him collaborate with saxophonist John Surman, Eddie Gomez on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums. In its retrospective review of the album, Jazzwise observed how “this 1978 ECM session with an A-list quartet already indicates how provocative his accompaniments were and how inventively he folds solo lines into oddball chords,“ calling the album “a one-off US/UK post-bop session of real character”.

Goodrick also appears on Charlie Haden’s Ballad Of The Fallen (1983), and with Steve Swallow’s ensembles on Deconstructed (1997) and Always Pack Your Uniform (2000), the latter of which were released on the XtraWatt label.

Mick Goodrick, Fred Hersch · Feebles, Fables and Ferns

ECM · Release Date: June 19, 2026

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Mick Goodrick, Fred Hersch | “Feebles, Fables and Ferns” | ECM