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REVIEWS Click Here to Read the All About Jazz Review of Fred's New CD, When Winter Comes
“Whether it concerns single notes or chords, Fred Fried's sensitive, spacious, modern phrasing, which judiciously incorporates virtuosic displays, sets him leagues apart from other players who haven't yet learned that guitarists should take a breath now and then.” - Jim Ferguson, Jazz Times, April, 1994.
“He (Fried) is a master improviser, weaving single lines with chords or playing two lines together. His pianistic approach to playing makes him unique as a jazz guitarist as well as a jazz composer. His music is "ear opening," sophisticated, beautiful and swinging. Once you hear Fred play just a few notes you will always recognize him.” - Bob Yelin “Another guitarist I admire is Fred Fried. He has created an astonishing and unique approach to solo playing, and raised the standard of 7-string playing. Lots of guitarists say they listen to piano players. Fred really sounds like he has." -guitarist Paul Hintz, interview in Just Jazz Guitar, August 2002 |
"Much more satisfying is the debut recording
of an impressive new solo guitarist, Fred Fried, a student of
George Van Eps who, like his teacher, plays a seven-stringed guitar
and ranges adroitly through the instrument, mixing single-string
lines, chorded accompaniment, and complementary bass lines. His
harmonic conception is very much up to the moment, Fried acknowledging
indebtedness in these areas to the late Bill Evans. The repertoire
he explores so effortlessly and interestingly includes Herbie
Hancock’s Dolphin Dance, Henry Mancini’s
Two For The Road, Stephen Sondheim’s Night
Music, Burton Lane and Ralph Freed’s How About
You, and six appealing originals...he plays them beautifully
and draws, with deceptive ease, great resources of deeply felt
and flawlessly played music from his gently amplified instrument.
Fried’s off to a great start.” - 
“Fried
is amongst the most modern practitioners of the 7-string guitar.
By modern, I don’t mean atonal caterwauling, but modern
in the sense of approaching the instrument sans preconceptions,
intent on constantly redefining the instrument’s parameters.
He is a fingerstylist par excellence, with a light and somewhat
classically derived approach to the fretboard, tempered in no
small part, by his admiration for contemporary pianists (Evans,
Barron, Hancock, Jamal)…Like the best pianists, he moves
seamlessly from chording to single note work, adding the little
touches on the low A string…In all, twelve performances
which will have the listener, as I have, coming back to this disc
again and again.” - Jim Fisch, 
“
Playing jazz guitar on a steel string acoustic model-especially
uptempo jazz-is tough stuff…but Fried has wrestled the instrument
into submission for five albums now, and to great effect; the
separation of the chord’s notes is clearer than that produced
by the average gut string guitar, and the sound is brighter than
most archtop electrics offer…Fried turns a chord sequence
into a web of melodies that develop separately…the music
ends up sounding much larger than three musicians should be able
to create. - Dave McElfresh, 
