Matt Ulery and Quin Kirchner are longtime fixtures on the FitzGerald’s stages. This evening they are joined by Paul Hecht, a pianist who divides his time between Chicago and Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Hecht has an unusual background: after studying jazz intensively during his education in New England, he veered into literary studies and classical violin, becoming an English professor and playing in orchestras and chamber groups in his spare time. His path to professional jazz performance over the last ten years had everything to do with finding himself in Chicago during a period of creative expansion, led by a generation of musicians as willing to innovate as they were wired into the city’s storied living musical traditions. Ulery and Kirchner happen to be two key figures in that expansion, so this evening promises an exploration of shared history as well as a chance to try out new directions and new provocations within the (intentionally) loose frame of jazz and improvised music.

Hecht’s first album of original music, Pyrography, will be released on ears&eyes records in April 2025; Ulery and Kircher have extensive discographies: Ulery’s latest recording is Mannerist, and Quin Kirchner is working on follow-ups to two well-received recent recordings, The Other Side of Time, and The Shadows and the Light. All of these are available on Bandcamp and streaming services. Hecht’s book about this history of English poetry in the late sixteenth century, What Rosalind Likes, was published by Oxford University Press in 2022. He writes regularly about the midwestern jazz scene on his Substack, ZLR.