Sullivan Fortner - LYDIALIEBMAN.COM

Leave That In There
Release Date: August 28, 2026
Label: Artwork Records / [PIAS]

Artwork Records is thrilled to announce the release of Leave That In There, the sixth album by GRAMMY Award-winning pianist, composer, and bandleader Sullivan Fortner. Co-produced by Derrick Hodge and Jack DeBoe, Leave That In There presents Fortner’s most personal and self-referential statement to date. Across a dozen original compositions and one cover, the New Orleans native threads together musical references, memories pulled from family history, spiritual traditions, and sonic callbacks to earlier works throughout his catalog. The album moves fluidly between acoustic trio interplay, Hammond B3 organ, synthesizers, marimba, Bàtá drumming, and fully improvised passages while maintaining the connective language that has defined Fortner’s music since his debut over a decade ago. This is the first studio recording featuring his working trio comprising bassist Tyrone Allen II and drummer Kayvon Gordon.

Fortner recently earned the GRAMMY Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album for his previous album Southern Nights, adding to a career that has established him as one of the defining pianists of his generation. He previously received a GRAMMY for his work with vocalist Samara Joy and has performed and recorded alongside artists including Cécile McLorin Salvant, Wynton Marsalis, Paul Simon, Dianne Reeves, and John Scofield, and has received countless accolades and recognition, including the The Gilmore's inaugural 2026 Larry J. Bell Jazz Artist Award. Fred Kaplan of Slate referred to Fortner as “simply one of the best jazz pianists playing.”

The album title comes from a line in When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, Spike Lee’s 2006 documentary chronicling the devastation following Hurricane Katrina. In the liner notes, writer Courtney-Savali L. Andrews recounts Fortner’s deep connection to the phrase and the layered meanings it carries within the record’s broader themes of memory, survival, humor, grief, ancestry, and resilience. Andrews describes the album as “his most self-referential work to date,” noting that Fortner sought to create “a catalogue of music that is connected.”

Raised in New Orleans, Fortner draws heavily throughout the album from the Gulf South, its landscapes cultural, musical, and historical. Opening track “Sugarcane” serves as an entry point into many of the album’s broader themes, drawing from both Fortner’s personal history and the deeper historical landscape of southern Louisiana, where he was raised. Built around Kayvon Gordon’s Bàtá drumming and layered rhythmic interplay between the trio, the composition reflects Fortner’s ongoing engagement with Black diasporic musical traditions while also referencing the histories of labor, migration, and resistance tied to Louisiana’s sugarcane industry. In the liner notes, Andrews connects the piece to the history of the 1811 German Coast uprising, the largest revolt led by enslaved Africans in American history, which took place near LaPlace, the town where Fortner grew up.

The composition also draws from Fortner’s own childhood memories. “Everybody knows what sugarcane is,” he recalls in the liner notes. “My grandmother used to come over with stalks of sugarcane. You would cut it, we would sit there, eat it and spit it out on the ground. That’s how I learned how to sweep as a kid.” Andrews describes the track as reflecting both the responsibilities and musical values Fortner inherited growing up, while the arrangement itself moves between acoustic piano, marimba, synthesizer textures, and layered percussion that subtly reference artists including Stevie Wonder, George Duke, and Bernie Worrell. The musical material introduced in “Sugarcane” later reappears elsewhere on the album, reinforcing the interconnected structure that runs throughout Leave That In There.

The trio of Fortner, Allen, and Gordon has steadily developed into one of the pianist’s most cohesive ensembles in recent years. Andrews writes that the album documents “the first [record] as the frontman to this consistent lineup,” capturing a band shaped through ongoing performance rather than a one-time studio session. Their interplay across the album balances precision with spontaneity, allowing Fortner’s compositional structures and improvisational instincts to coexist naturally within the same musical language.

Leave That In There features a dozen originals, composed by Sulivan or fully improvised in the studio with the trio. Among the album’s other highlights are “Swirl,” a new original composition inspired by Thelonious Monk, the meditative tribute to the late Mama Payne, “A Hymn for Linda,” “Aria II,” which revisits material from Fortner’s 2015 debut album Aria, and the contemplative lead single “Que Diablos”, The sole cover is “Number 3”, which is a fast waltz written by Detroit’s own drummer-composer Lawrence Willians. A staple in Marcus Belgrave's repertoire - who Sullivan met while at Oberlin - the track is a tribute to him.

Throughout the project, Fortner revisits earlier musical ideas not as nostalgia, but as part of an evolving continuum. As Andrews writes Leave That In There serves as “another sound collage” that lays bare Fortner’s “histories, logics, desires, priorities, and concerns.”

With Leave That In There, Sullivan Fortner expands the scope of the piano trio format while deepening the personal and musical threads that have run through his work from the beginning.

Southern Nights
Release Date: February 14, 2025
Label: Artwork Records / [PIAS]

GRAMMY WINNER

Southern Nights is the latest album by Grammy-winning pianist Sullivan Fortner. Recorded during an unforgettable weeklong residency at New York’s iconic Village Vanguard in the summer of 2023, Southern Nights showcases Fortner’s artistry at its peak, in the company of the great Peter Washington on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums.

In July 2023, Sullivan Fortner returned to the legendary Village Vanguard in New York City for his second weeklong residency as a bandleader. Tasked with forming a trio of exceptional musicians, Fortner brought together bassist Peter Washington and drummer Marcus Gilmore for a truly outstanding week of performances. Their connection—unrehearsed yet seamless—culminated in a spontaneous recording session that same week that captured the magic of their collaboration. The resulting album, Southern Nights, is a vibrant testament to Fortner’s artistry and New Orleans heritage.

Reflecting on the experience, Fortner shared, “I had been a fan of Peter Washington since hearing him play with Bill Charlap when I was in high school. His lyrical approach and sense of groove are everything I admire in a bassist. Marcus Gilmore and I have known each other since high school, and I’ve always been inspired by his unique approach to the drums. It was our first time playing together as a trio, and from the first note, it felt as if we’d been doing so for years.”

Southern Nights features a wide-ranging repertoire, including tunes by Allen Toussaint and Clifford Brown, and tributes to his late mentor Bill Lee and Lee’s sister, the underappreciated pianist and educator Consuela Lee and a Fortner original. Recorded live in the studio with no isolation, edits, or retakes, the album channels the raw energy and immediacy of the trio's live sets at the Vanguard.

The album's centerpiece is its title track, a reinterpretation of Toussaint’s 1970s classic, a wistful piano-led tribute to magical childhood evenings in rural Louisiana. As music historian Ashley Kahn writes in the liner notes, Fortner’s rendition “returns it to its primary focus on piano, matching wistfulness with youthful joy… capturing the reflective charm that Toussaint’s original and Fortner’s interpretation share.”

Kahn also emphasizes Fortner’s New Orleans roots, noting how the city’s unique musical ethos—marked by an openness to tradition and innovation alike—shines through in his playing. “There’s something about the music of New Orleans that goes beyond distinctive rhythms,” writes Kahn. “It’s an unrestrained respect for music’s porous nature, a willingness to mix, meld, and breathe. You hear that generosity and bubbling joy in every note Fortner plays.”

Recorded with veteran engineer Todd Whitelock, Southern Nights captures the trio’s quick, intuitive interplay. Their dynamic chemistry is showcased across an eclectic setlist, from the post-bop dexterity of Donald Brown’s “Waltz for Monk” to the reflective depth of Bill Lee’s “Again Never.”

Fortner’s trio is joined in spirit by New Orleans’s rich musical lineage, with nods to Cuban influences on Osvaldo Farres’ “Tres Palabras” and the timeless connection between jazz and Caribbean sounds. “New Orleans is at the top of the Caribbean,” Fortner observes. “It’s definitely not America. The Spanish and Caribbean influences run deep, and you can hear that in the music.”

This album stands among iconic piano trio recordings, offering both a snapshot of a moment in time and a promising glimpse of what lies ahead. Fortner’s journey from NOCCA and mentorship under Ellis Marsalis to his ongoing collaborations with luminaries like Cécile McLorin Salvant has solidified his place as one of jazz’s most vital voices. Currently, the pianist is nominated for three GRAMMY Awards, including in the Best Jazz Instrumental Album category for his prior Artwork release Solo Game.

With Southern Nights, Sullivan Fortner captures the unrepeatable magic of their Vanguard’s sets—an intimate, joyous occasion filled with chance-taking and deep connection. It’s an album that invites listeners to celebrate the past while anticipating a thrilling future for Fortner and his trio.