Jazz Articles about Kevin Fort

About Kevin Fort

Album Review

The combination of piano and guitar seems to be a potential no-brainer for artistic jazz expression, yet not many successful attempts exist, on record anyway. The obvious victories and inspirations are the two albums by hall-of-famers Bill Evans and Jim Hall , Undercurrent (Blue Note, 1962) and Intermodulation (Verve, 1966). The Chicago-area pianist Kevin Fort is transparent about the influence of Undercurrent in notes that accompany Fort's album with under-heralded guitarist Andy Brown, Chiaroscuro. Yet the stronger comparison ...

Album Review

Kevin Fort: Everything I Love

Read "Everything I Love" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
May 8, 2025

Pianist Kevin Fort is a virtuoso improviser and an imaginative composer with a refreshingly novel style rooted firmly in the mainstream tradition. In addition to playing with several Chicago-area artists, Fort leads a cohesive trio that has created a unique, delightfully textured sound. It is mostly with this ensemble that he has recorded his four superb albums, the last of which is the disc at hand, the captivating Everything I Love. A mix of standards and Fort's originals, ...

Album Review

Kevin Fort: Everything I Love

Read "Everything I Love" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
April 21, 2025

The ghosts of pianists past inhabit the music of Kevin Fort. The Chicago-based piano man's third album release, Everything I Love, keeps a grip on the tradition with an eye to right now on this ten-tune workout that includes five engaging Fort originals and and five well-chosen standards, incuding the Cole Porter title tune, the Rodgers and Hart's “Spring Is Here," and Tadd Dameron's “If You Could See Me Now." Those ghosts? Erroll Garner, Tommy Flanagan, maybe even ...

Album Review

Kevin Fort: Perspectives

Read "Perspectives" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
December 2, 2022

Pianist and composer Kevin Fort follows his extraordinary debut, Red Gold (CD Baby, 2014), with another tip of the hat to jazz standards and the modern tradition; Perspectives is a musical package nicely filled with new arrangements of six classics and four new originals, performed by a standard piano trio. For more than twenty years an in-demand player in Chicago's talent-rich jazz scene, Fort is also an educator, currently lecturing at the Northwestern University Bienen School of Music.

Album Review

Kevin Fort: Red Gold

Read "Red Gold" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
March 13, 2015

Chicago-based educator and jazz pianist, Kevin Fort unveils his debut and first solo album on Red Gold, where he presents an exciting session of light contemporary jazz employing a standard piano trio to document fresh new arrangements of several standards and three original compositions. An active musician in Chicago's vibrant jazz scene for the past fifteen-years, Fort has performed with some of the best jazz players in the world including Wayne Bergeron, John Clayton, Ramsey Lewis and Bill Watrous among ...