"Song Without Words No.4: Duet" with Julian Lage 2014: Best Jazz Instrumental Album for Floating (as the Fred Hersch Trio), and Best Improvised Jazz Solo for "You and the Night and the Music" 2016: Best Jazz Instrumental Album for Sunday Night at the Vanguard, and Best Improvised Jazz Solo for "We See" 2017: Best Jazz Instrumental Album for Open Book, and Best Improvised Jazz Solo for "Whisper Not" 2018: Best Jazz Instrumental Album and Best Improvised Jazz Solo for another interpretation of "We See" Critical response DownBeat magazine described Hersch as "one of the small handful of brilliant musicians of his generation." The New York Times described him as "singular among the trailblazers of their art, a largely unsung innovator of this borderless, individualistic jazz – a jazz for the 21st century." Influence Hersch's influence has been widely felt on a new generation of jazz pianists, from former Hersch students including Brad Mehldau, Ethan Iverson, Sullivan Fortner, Aaron Diehl and Dan Tepfer to his contemporary Jason Moran, who said: "Fred at the piano is like LeBron James on the basketball court. He's perfection." Gallery Personal life Illness In 1993, Hersch came out as gay and that he had been treated for HIV since 1984. He fell into a coma in 2008 for two months. When he regained consciousness, he had lost all muscular function as a result of his long inactivity and could not play the piano. After rehabilitation, he was able to play again. In 2011, he performed My Coma Dreams, a stage show written and directed by Herschel Garfein about the contrast between dreams and reality. Charity work Hersch has been a spokesman and fund-raiser for AIDS services and education agencies since 1993. Hersch has produced and performed on four benefit recordings and in numerous concerts for charities including Classical Action: Performing Arts Against AIDS and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS which had raised over $250,000 as of June 2013. In April 2016, he played a benefit concert for Buddhist Global Relief. He has also been the keynote speaker and performer at international medical conferences. Autobiography Good Things Happen Slowly: A Life In and Out of Jazz, Published 2017 Discography As leader/co-leader (Artists and labels are only linked once at first appearance. Line-up can be sorted by "solo", "duo", "trio"... All trios are classic piano trios with (grand) piano, upright bass and drum kit, except for the trio Thirteen