JAZZ
BY ANDY COWAN
Theo Croker & Sullivan Fortner ★★★★
PLAY
ACT. CD/DL/LP
Florida trumpeter and New Orleans pianist take studio improvisation to new heights.
Having scrapped a covers set spanning the great American songbook, Theo Croker and Sullivan Fortner (Cécile McLorin Salvant’s regular accompanist) looked inwards for inspiration. Recording without a plan, just a clutch of spontaneous cues (“I play long, you play fast” etc), emotion seeps into the breathy, long-held notes on which Croker excels across As We Are and Beneath The Noise, with Fortner adding impressionistic flourishes and Sakamoto-esque keys to sole pre-write Prayer For Peace. Offset by shorter, more playful numbers seemingly improvised eye-to-eye, Crocker’s Miles Davis-like ability to shape the mood using time and space and Fortner’s gliding notes and Monk-ish abstractions reign. Worlds away from their last solo efforts – Croker’s party-oriented Dream Manifest, Fortner’s showy Southern Nights – PLAY’s refreshing, eclectic take on chamber music distils the spirit of autumn.