‘For this record, I took an edible and said, screw it’: jazz pianist Sullivan Fortner on confronting the trauma of Hurricane Katrina
The New Orleans native is a three-time Grammy winner at the top of his game – and is now using his instinctive style to celebrate
The New Orleans native is a three-time Grammy winner at the top of his game – and is now using his instinctive style to celebrate the resilience and clarity of Katrina survivors ‘Black music is forward and upward in movement, you know? Never forward or upward,” pianist Sullivan Fortner declares.
“It’s a tornado that’s always getting bigger and moving faster,” he adds, whizzing his fingers around with delight. On a video call between sets at Rotterdam’s North Sea jazz festival, the 39-year-old speaks like he plays, with quirkiness, subtlety and mischief. A three-time Grammy winner – including for 2025’s Southern Nights – Fortner also recently received the Larry J Bell award, a prize of $300,000 (£225,000) given every four years to a standout jazz pianist, which gave him the confidence to present an all-encompassing version of himself on Leave That in There, his sixth album.
“I’ve tried the self-editing way,” he says of previous albums involving multiple takes and endless post-production tinkering. “For this record, I took an edible and
I just said, screw it.” Continue reading...
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