It's the Nights I Like (with Sullivan Fortner)
SSC1730 2024-02-02
Track List
Always in the Moment - 4:32
I Can't Explain - 5:49
Big Foot - 4:18
Duke Ellington's Sound of Love - 4:42
It's the Nights I Like - 2:58
Sophisticated Lady - 4:08
Sweet Loraine - 7:12
Reminiscing - 3:13
The Meddler - 4:31
The Peacocks - 5:16
Come Out and Play - 5:10
Memories of You - 2:57
Musicians
Sullivan Fortner - piano
Rufus Reid - bass
The mastery of an instrument or a musical language doesn’t necessarily mean that a musician must be frivolous in performance with displays of their masterful technique or engagement in superfluous overplaying. Sometimes it is the restraint that shows the maturity and taste of a performer. Rufus Reid and Sullivan Fortner are musicians who have the easy ability to astonish but show their class in their control.
Of course, Reid has been acknowledged as one of the best bassists in jazz for decades, leaving him nothing more to prove. The heralded young pianist, Sullivan Fortner, has a maturity beyond his years and the pairing of the two allows for music making of the highest caliber. Their duo recording, It’s The Nights I Like, shows just what kind of magic can made without resorting to histrionics and letting the music shine.
Reid has long been making music with ensembles of all sizes, not limited to small groups but even for jazz orchestras that he composes for. His artistry has never been limited by ensemble and when he was invited to record an album for Elan Mehler and Newvelle Records in 2019, Reid decided to partner with Sullivan with whom he had been introduced a couple years before after the pianist had won the 2015 American Jazz Pianists Competition.
In July of 2019, the duo recorded an album at Eastside Sound in New York City that was released the next year on Newvelle. It’s The Nights I Like issues this material digitally for the first time along with two bonus tracks that were live streamed in concert on April 23, 2021.
The music the duo prepared is a mixture of Reid’s originals and standards or canonical pieces from jazz’s greatest composers, including Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, and Charlie Parker.
