Grammy-Award winning pianist and composer Sullivan Fortner, the inaugural winner of the Gilmore’s new Larry J. Bell Jazz Award, kicked off the 2026 Gilmore Piano Festival with a joyful, 75-minute solo performance in which he used four different keyboards to literally play with what’s possible musically on International Jazz Day, Thursday night at The Parrish Theatre in Kalamazoo.
“In a playground there are no rules . . . anything is possible,” he said from behind the keyboards, suggesting that place, surrounded by instruments, was his playground. “We’re gonna have a little fun tonight. If not, it’s probably your fault,” he said to laughter from the audience.
The program, which largely appeared to be improvised, began with an evocative interpretation of Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing” that began softly, elegantly, building in energy and syncopation, his toe tapping audible throughout, a nod to the intimacy of the space and intent listening from the sold-out audience.
“I always start with Stevie because of my mother and my father who gave him to me as a gift when I was 12 or 13 years old,” he said. “‘This is real music, son,’” he imitated his father saying, adding “You know how it is.”
Fortner interjected banter throughout the concert as well as little vocalisms amid his playing, which moved from the familiar to more experimental original compositions, such as “It’s A Game” in which he strummed the Steinway strings, played its keys, and shifted back and forth between the Rhodes electric piano and Moog synthesizer, often with each hand on a different keyboard. He punctuated the end of the piece with a laugh and said, “All right, I’ll explain,” adding “that’s the kind of subject we’re dealing with,” and setting the stage with the idea that the evening would be a kind of game without rules.
He was definitely having fun.
He turned upstage to the Hammond organ for “Space Walk”, a tune from his 2023 solo album “Solo Game”, another of his original compositions in which he brought us to church, using both keyboards and the pedals to create a wall of sound. “Yeah, why not?” he said at the conclusion of the piece. “Any questions so far?”
Acknowledging that an audience enjoys hearing recognizable music, with his nimble fingers, and at turns gentle and explosive touch, he offered his original stylings of Fats Waller’s “Viper’s Drag” and Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes”, a request he took from the audience that he declared he’d never played a note of in his life before and attributed his version to Thelonius Monk.
Fortner also played a rousing medley inspired by Monk that delightfully mashed up songs including “Ruby, My Dear” and “San Francisco Holiday” parts of which sounded reminiscent of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”, among other tunes.
Monk is clearly an influence, as is Dan Wall, Fortner’s mentor from Oberlin who died last week, and to whom he dedicated the performance “and everything he gave me musically.”
After playing a bouncy, rhythmic “Nação” from Brazilian composer João Bosco throughout which his upper body as well as his fingers danced at the electric piano, with high notes sounding like little bells, he dedicated his final song to Larry Bell, Kalamazoo brewing giant who endowed the $300,000 Jazz Award for which Fortner is the first recipient. Bell sat in the front row, and when asked, requested Miles Davis’s “Green Dolphin Street”, which Fortner made new with his stylings on the organ.
To be audience to Fortner Sullivan is to get the sense that there isn’t anything he can’t play—phenomenally and in his own way—and so he chooses to really play, as if on a playground, playing for fun, and by his own rules, of which there are none. With him at the keyboards, it’s impossible not to appreciate his artistry, his reverence for those who have come before him, to marvel at what he makes possible, and to have fun along with him.
Opening Night: Gilmore Piano Festival
April 30
See the full lineup of this year's festival here: thegilmore.org
