Sullivan Fortner Trio: Collective Imagination

News, From the Magazine, Sullivan Fortner

By Suzanne Lorge I Sep. 4, 2024

The Sullivan Fortner Trio, from left, Fortner, Tyrone Allen and Kayvon Gordon.
(Photo: Mark Sheldon)

As a pianist, Sullivan Fortner is a master at shifting gears. He spent years as a key member of trumpeter Roy Hargrove’s quintet. He and vocal phenom Cécile McLorin Salvant regularly perform in concert settings large and small, but most prominently as an incomparable duo.

And last year Fortner released the one-man tour de force Solo Game (Artwork) to acclaim. But this year our critics acknowledge his work as the leader of a new project, granting the title of Rising Star Jazz Group to the Sullivan Fortner Trio. In a phone chat with DownBeat, the bandleader reveals what makes his latest ensemble with bassist Tyrone Allen and drummer Kayvon Gordon so exceptional.

Fortner says the tighter format of the trio allows for greater freedom, both conceptually and improvisationally. With fewer elements to consider, the group’s collective imagination is the only limit on its musical exploration.

“One of the obvious gains is that I get to control the melody and how it’s played,” he says. “But the cool thing about playing in a trio setting is there’s less input, which leaves more space to create.”

Fortner and his two collaborators have no trouble filling that space with “different, fun scenarios,” as Fortner describes them. Fun, in this case, means foregoing the predictable, and admittedly, he tends to put Gordon and Allen through their paces on the bandstand.

“I’m very grueling because I always change things — but that leaves a lot of wiggle room for things to happen in a trio setting,” he says.

Adding to the challenge, Fortner doesn’t allow any charts on these gigs — an approach to performing that might not work as well with a larger group or a singer (Salvant being an exception). Further, Fortner prefers to keep the sound as spontaneous as possible and will often use the group’s sound check as a “mini rehearsal” for the set to come; sometimes he’ll even introduce unplanned tunes during the set itself. (In these situations the sight lines are important, he says, so he always sets the band up “pretty close,” affording Gordon and Allen a ready view of his left hand.)

“I teach everything to the trio by ear. I just say, ‘This is the song — listen to it and let’s figure out a groove that works on it.’ That’s it. And then we just play it on the gig,” he says.

Fortner’s bandleading, demanding of precocity from his players, lends a raw, unpredictable sound to the group as it digs into what is essential in the music they’re performing. Not surprisingly, he’s necessarily careful in picking tunes for the trio, and while songbook standards might be on default for other highly improvisational groups, Fortner favors originals, looking to avoid tunes that are too familiar to the audience (“unless it’s a ballad,” he clarifies).

For these originals, Fortner find ideas everywhere: operatic arias, classical song cycles, slow blues, driving funk, rousing gospel, all of the jazz sub-genres — even television jingles. None of his compositional choices are random, however; with this eclecticism he is making a point.

“The goal is to start to break the barriers of genre,” he explains. “I’m trying to dispel all of these rules and say, ‘Look at these songs as just songs and look at music as just music. Get your hands dirty with deconstructing things, with reconstructing things.’ We definitely have a good time with it.”

Fortner, too, brings a breadth of experience in leading other trios to this new ensemble: Most notably, his second album for Impulse!, Moments Preserved, was a three-man session featuring bassist Ameen Salem and drummer Jeremy Bean Clemons, and a version of the Sullivan Fortner Trio with drummer Peter Washington and bassist Marcus Gilmore played the esteemed Village Vanguard last year.

The current incarnation of Fortner’s trio, however, is now in its most lasting configuration. Formed in 2021, the group quickly settled into gigging, most often around New York, and within a year they were playing the Newport Jazz Festival. Much of the credit for this rapid rise goes to Fortner’s far reach as a consummate player, but he readily praises his bandmates for the trio’s success.

“Kayvon and Tyrone stand out for quite a few things,” he says. “One is their willingness to try and stretch. A lot of people become, over the years, a little bit too precious with music, and it’s refreshing to be around younger musicians who are willing to experiment while still having an understanding of its roots.”

Fortner met Gordon first, on an overseas gig. Both had studied with trumpeter Marcus Belgrave — Fortner while a student at Oberlin Conservatory and Gordon as a musician in Detroit, Belgrave’s hometown. A shared aesthetic sensibility contributed to their easy rapport.

“Kayvon is very well versed in different types of rhythms and grooves, from Detroit, the Caribbean, soul — all that stuff,” Fortner says. “But he’s a very sensitive drummer. He’s not loud or overbearing, which makes him great for piano trio.”

It was Gordon who suggested Allen for the group — something of a best practice on Fortner’s part. “I always tell people if you want to make a drummer happy, give him a bass player he likes. Tyrone was that guy,” he says.

“Tyrone [comes from] the D.C. area, where bass players have a rich tradition of being really groove-oriented. There’s a certain type of swag that he brings to the music that he plays. It’s really cool. And it works.”

Heretofore, anyone wanting to hear how these three talents fit together would have had to catch them live. This will change early next year when the group releases its debut record, as yet unnamed, on the PIAS/Artworks label. As with Solo Game, the album will leverage Fortner’s strong writing for electronics, percussion overdubs and voice.

But, too, Fortner has plans for his Vanguard group, which took to the studio the same week as their 2023 gig. That record, Southern Nights, named after the Allen Toussaint composition, comes out later next year.

“So, two trio albums in 2025,” Fortner says. “It’s pretty crazy.” DB