Among jazz improvisers it's well known that the high watermark for a jazz artist rests on how well you can express a ballad. The art of playing "slow and simple" sits in direct contrast to the often break-neck speeds and complex musical ideas that characterize a great deal of contemporary jazz improvisation. Well known jazz ballad interpreters like Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Shirley Horn, and Billie Holiday have set the standard for generations of musicians interested in playing less and expressing more. How do musicians play "real slow" and what do they think about while they're doing it? How is it different from their improvisational process when they're playing faster tempos? Do musicians experience a different state of consciousness when they play slowly as a group? What part do lyrics play in a ballad interpretation? Three world-renowned jazz artists and long-time collaborators—pianist Fred Hersch, bassist Drew Gress, and saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom—come together to perform and talk about their experience playing in the slow lane.

Jane Ira Bloom is a soprano saxophonist, composer, and a pioneer in the use of live electronics and movement in jazz. She is the winner of the 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship in music composition, the 2007 Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Award for lifetime service to jazz, the Jazz Journalists Association Award and the Downbeat International Critics Poll for soprano saxophone, and the Charlie Parker Fellowship for jazz innovation. Bloom was the first musician commissioned by the NASA Art Program and has an asteroid named in her honor by the International Astronomical Union. She has received numerous commissions and has composed for the American Composers Orchestra, the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, and the Pilobolus Dance Theater integrating jazz performers in new settings. She has recorded and produced 13 albums of her music and holds degrees from Yale University and the Yale School of Music. Bloom is currently on the faculty of the New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music in NYC. Her latest release is the award-winning CD, Mental Weather.

Drew Gress is a bassist and composer who performs extensively with artists on the cutting edge of contemporary improvised music. His latest project, The Irrational Numbers, features Drew's original compositions for quintet. Earlier releases include the critically acclaimed 7 Black Butterflies, Spin & Drift, and Heyday. Future projects include a solo bass recording and a soon-to-be-unveiled electronics project. Gress can also be heard within the ensembles of Ralph Alessi, Tim Berne, Don Byron, Uri Caine, Bill Carrothers, Ravi Coltrane, Marc Copland, Dave Douglas, Mark Feldman, Fred Hersch, John Hollenbeck, Tony Malaby, and John Surman. In an altogether previous musical life, he grounded the performances of Buddy Hackett, Phyllis Diller, Zoot Sims, Cab Calloway, and Pia Zadora.

Fred Hersch is a pianist and composer who has earned his place among the foremost jazz artists and creative musicians in the world today. His many accomplishments include two Grammy nominations for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance and a 2003 Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for composition. In 2006, Palmetto Records released the solo disc, Fred Hersch in Amsterdam: Live at the Bimhuis, which was followed by a solo run at New York's legendary Village Vanguard. He has appeared on over one hundred recordings, including more than two dozen albums as bandleader/solo pianist. His concert, solo piano, and chamber music is published by Edition Peters and he has received numerous commissions from a wide variety of artists including the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, The Opus 21 Ensemble, The Brooklyn Youth Chorus, The Gramercy Trio, and Columbia University's Miller Theatre. He recently created Leaves of Grass, a large-scale setting of Walt Whitman's poetry for two voices and an instrumental octet, which was presented in March 2005 in a sold-out performance at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall as part of a six-city US tour.