{"id":7341,"date":"2016-02-19T17:23:22","date_gmt":"2016-02-20T01:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=7341"},"modified":"2016-02-21T23:31:00","modified_gmt":"2016-02-22T07:31:00","slug":"sullivan-fortner-in-portland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2016\/02\/sullivan-fortner-in-portland\/","title":{"rendered":"Sullivan Fortner In Portland"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his solo piano concert opening the Portland Jazz Festival last night, Sullivan Fortner surveyed a wide territory of styles and wrapped them into his own. At the B\u00c3\u00b6sendorfer grand in the recital hall of Classic Pianos, Fortner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s program ranged from a spiky treatment of Bronislaw Kaper\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Invitation\u00e2\u20ac\u009d through an encore saluting Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. <\/p>\n

\"Fortner,Fresh from winning the American Pianists Association\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Cole Porter Fellowship in Jazz, Fortner incorporated influences both subtle and obvious. He used the blues to work his way into \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Making Whoopee and invested the performance with a rollicking quote from \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Surrey With The Fringe on Top\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and a sly borrowing from Willie The Lion Smith\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Echoes of Spring.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Fortner seems anything but calculated in his improvisations. In \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Someone to Watch Over Me,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he led himself briefly into what might have been a blind harmonic alley and with a daring octave leap found a way out. He made a transition from Bill Evans\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Very Early\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to his own composition \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ballade,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which included a lovely cycle-of-5ths section. Although he can be dazzling in his use of technique, nothing Fortner plays seems intended purely for effect. He made clever paraphrases of the melody in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Just One of Those Things,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d worked in a few seconds of waltz time, hinted at James P. Johnson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s swing feeling, then went into the full stride piano style of which Johnson was the master. Introducing his melding of Ellington\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Single Petal of a Rose\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and Strayhorn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Star Crossed Lovers,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he described their storied partnership as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153love story\u00e2\u20ac\u009d inspired by the Divinity, then reflected on his own love of the piano and of music. <\/p>\n

Fortner dedicated \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My Favorite Things\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to John Coltrane. He created an introduction that may have had its inspiration in Coltrane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s free period, slid into a liberal interpretation of the famous melody, made a tag ending that flirted with “\u00be time, then used a series of key changes to bring the piece home. The festival—dedicated to Coltrane—was off to a good start.<\/p>\n

(Photo by Mark Sheldon)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his solo piano concert opening the Portland Jazz Festival last night, Sullivan Fortner surveyed a wide territory of styles and wrapped them into his own. At the B\u00c3\u00b6sendorfer grand in the recital hall of Classic Pianos, Fortner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s program ranged from a spiky treatment of Bronislaw Kaper\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Invitation\u00e2\u20ac\u009d through an encore saluting Duke Ellington and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7341","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}