Sullivan Fortner, Southern Nights Review

by Jeff Becker

There is something about the sound of a piano jazz trio that has never played together before yet speaks from the same musical bloodline. Southern Nights, the new live-in-studio album from Grammy-winning pianist Sullivan Fortner, documents precisely such a moment. Captured during a weeklong July 2023 residency at New York’s Village Vanguard and released February 14, 2025, via Artwork Records, this set of nine inspired performances are spontaneous trio conversations on tradition and modern jazz fluency.

The personnel lineup reads like a dream call sheet for any jazz pianist seeking deep dialogue: Peter Washington on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums. With no rehearsals, no edits, and no retakes, the trio delivers a record that is deliberate as each moment is built on attentive listening, trust, and immediate response.

Fortner, now 38, is a pianist whose aesthetic has always defied easy categorization. He is a New Orleans musician through and through, but his fluency spans the jazz language. On Southern Nights, that linguistic command is on full display. From boogie-inflected rhythms to post-bop harmonic sleights, Fortner channels his heritage through the lens of modern piano trio interaction.

Opening with Allen Toussaint’s “Southern Nights,” where the trio reimagines this New Orleans classic with second-line flair refracted through a soulful jazz lens. Gilmore’s touch is painterly: tambourine shimmers, hi-hat textures, and cymbal washes give the track a wide sonic halo. Fortner maintains simultaneous melodic and chordal motion, conjuring the ghost of New Orleans boogie and blues piano without caricature. Washington and Gilmore offer rhythmic ballast and elasticity in equal measure.

The trio’s harmonic conversation deepens on Cole Porter’s “I Love You.” Fortner introduces the standard with an angular solo statement steeped in 20th-century classical language. During his solo, he hints at voicings echoing Keith Jarrett’s voice lead lines and Brad Mehldau’s harmonic storytelling. The trio conversation is based in an eighth-note feel locked in tightly to a swing feeling. Fortner’s phrasing rides the groove with clarity, balancing melodic grace and rhythmic precision.

Donald Brown’s “Waltz for Monk” offers a compositional homage that Fortner meets with structural respect and interpretive daring. The waltzing head pulses with shifting phrase lengths and Monkish rhythmic displacement. Fortner’s voicings blend harmonic tension with modern voice leading, and his solo navigates the tune’s post-bop arc with angular energy. The trio’s subtle cross-rhythms stretch time just enough to keep the listener suspended in forward motion.

One of the most invigorating moments comes with Clifford Brown’s “Daahoud.” Gilmore opens with a melodic drum solo that sets the tone rhythmically and thematically. The trio enters with an exuberant statement of the melody, and the ensuing improvisation is marked by interactivity and layered phrasing. Fortner’s soloing feels fluid in its conversational and architectural exchanging of ideas with Gilmore’s coloristic drumming and Washington’s steady foundation. The group maintains a fluid swing throughout, updating the hard bop idiom without diminishing its melodic integrity.

For jazz fans, Southern Nights is a vivid case study in what can emerge from risk, respect, and the right personnel. The absence of rehearsal does not yield chaos, it reveals connection. Fortner’s piano work invites analysis for its harmonic depth and its ability to shape group interplay. Gilmore’s drumming glues the trio texture, often functioning as a melodic voice in and of itself. Washington’s bass grounds the group, his sense of pulse and melodic counterpoint providing a constant center for the trio to orbit.

Southern Nights celebrates Fortner’s New Orleans roots and refracts them through modern sensibilities and trio spontaneity, making the familiar sound new. For anyone invested in the craft and continuum of piano-lead jazz, this is essential listening.