Sullivan Fortner Trio at Blues Alley

Sullivan Fortner Trio
Blues Alley
Washington, DC
January 14, 2025

There are two sides to pianist Sullivan Fortner's playing, at least. There's Fortner the neo-traditionalist, bringing stride piano into the 21st century and taking more inspiration from old giants like Willie "The Lion" Smith and James P. Johnson than, say, Bill Evans or Keith Jarrett. So far, his discography as a leader has tended to showcase the elegance and whimsy of Fortner No. 1—for example, on 2018's Moments Preserved (Impulse!).

Then there's Fortner the modernist, who took the stage at Washington DC's Blues Alley. Joined by bassist Yasushi Nakamura and drummer Kayvon Gordon, Fortner No. 2 took an aggressive, percussive approach to the piano—or as he called it, "the box." Starting with what he dubbed a "Detroit anthem" by Lawrence Williams, Fortner attacked the box with gusto, teeing up a night of surprises for both the audience and his bandmates. It's a welcome shift in style for a still-evolving player who is clearly eager to explore stranger realms in the jazz landscape, as he already started doing on 2023's spacey Solo Game (Artwork).

For Fortner No. 2, rhythm and texture stand out more to the listener than melody or harmony. A rendition of Benny Golson's "Stablemates," for example, began with a thudding unison among the instruments before Fortner introduced the melody. Attesting to his rhythmic focus even more clearly, during Nakamura's solo, Fortner, rather than providing any backing from the piano, instead just snapped along. And on Joe Henderson's "Recorda Me," which opened with a conversation between piano and drums, it was the tune's distinct rhythmic hits that signaled before anything else what they were playing. Nakamura took a similar approach to the music throughout the night, at times strumming the bass's strings like a guitarist, at others boldly slapping down a note for emphasis, and once rapidly tapping out a repeated note like a pianist tickling one key. In contrast to the careful precision and delicacy of Fortner No. 1 on most of his recordings, here Fortner was allowing himself room for more unplanned dissonances and experiments.

But Fortner No. 2 still made sure amid the noise to show off his chops and finger work, pushing his bandmates ever faster in a blazing rendition of Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II's "Lover Will Come Back to Me." Even at the breakneck pace, Fortner found a second to throw in a quote from Bud Powell's "Parisian Thoroughfare." A rendition of Gabriel Fauré's "Au Bord de L'eau," meanwhile, showed off Fortner's interests beyond the jazz repertoire, adapting the song so well to his trio that one might never have guessed its classical origins.

Perhaps aided by the more freewheeling, exploratory mood that night, Fortner was also able to show off his sense of humor. This was a funny show. Towards the end of a jaunty minor-key swing, for example, Fortner held a sustained trill at the low end of the keys, then broke into a stride-piano frenzy that could easily have accompanied a bandit's bank robbery in some grainy black-and-white Western film. At one point in the opening tune, he seemed to be winding down his solo and passing off the spotlight to Nakamura; but instead, the tune simply ended right there. Twice more in the set, Fortner pulled the same fake-out on the audience. It's a trick that might get tedious with a weaker band; but here, such surprises just forced the audience and players alike to stay on the alert. Any second of lapsed attention and the joke might be on you, wondering what just happened.

The jokes continued through the finale, with the trio playing a schmaltzy rendition of the Cheers theme song. The audience got a kick out of it, yucking it up when the refrain came in. But didn't they deserve better than a cheesy sitcom theme? This was a knowledgeable audience that came for the real deal: one attendee waved an issue of Downbeat magazine with Fortner's face on the cover, and when the trio finished "Stablemates" and Fortner quizzed the audience, many yelled out its name. Fortner clearly knows how to tell a good joke with his music, and even the best comics sometimes settle for an easy crowd-pleaser. But as this still-up-and-coming pianist's own evolution, and the rest of the night's show, should make clear, it's better to forge ahead into new sonic territory than take the easy way out.

Comments