Sullivan Fortner Trio in Heidelberg
New Orleans-born pianist Sullivan Fortner played last night at the beautiful, almost luxurious Alte Aula of the University in Heidelberg as part of this year’s Enjoy Jazz Festival. Among his many accolades is his work with trumpeter Roy Hargrove from 2010 to 2017. He was mentored by Fred Hersch, just like two other important contemporary pianists: Jason Moran and Brad Mehldau. That’s what festival director Rainer Kern told the audience at the sold-out venue. Together with pianist Tyrone Allen II and drummer Kayvon Gordon, Sullivan started off with several pieces from his most recent, brilliant trio LP “Leave That In There”, which came out last summer on Artwork Records. And even though you have a lot of Moog and Fender Rhodes and lots of synthesizers on the album, it is fascinating to hear his compositions take shape in an acoustic trio setting.
What really strikes me the most is his deeply felt joy playing this music. Sudden outbursts of laughter and excitement are part of the game here and his whole vision seems to be focused on what goes on around him. He can easily delve deep into bop classics like Charlie Parker’s “Quasimodo”, deciphering the chord structure and later play around with it. And he totally convinced with a genuine version of the bolero staple “Tres Palabras”, made famous back in the day by Nat King Cole. Sullivan is also pretty dexterous with jazz standards which he proved with his exceptionally skilled version of “Blue Lou”. The repertoire he chose for his set only underscores his vast and powerful wisdom and vision: he included Horace Silver’s thumping and bumping scores as well as some Joe Henderson and Bobby Hutcherson too (“Little B’s Poem”). My favorite was his impeccably beautiful take on the Lionel Bart-written “Where Is Love?”, where he showed his tender and gentle side and actually made clear why he is certainly one of the most satisfying and interesting and multifaceted pianists around today.
