Play

Trumpeter Theo Croker and pianist Sullivan Fortner conjure a communal reverie on 2025s Play. Friends and collaborators since meeting while students at Oberlin Conservatory, Croker and Fortner spent the early 2000s pushing each other to excel. It was during this period that they recorded Crokers first two albums, 2006s The Fundamentals and 2009s In the Tradition. Following Crokers return from an extended period working in China, they again came together for the trumpeters 2014 breakthrough, Afro Physicist, an album that found him expanding into fusion, funk, and global traditions. Though they stayed close, they moved in different directions, with Croker continuing to expand his cross-pollinated sound and Fortner building a reputation as a first-class accompanist and working with singers like Cecile McLorin Salvant, Samara Joy, and Kurt Elling. Play finds Croker and Fortner returning to their roots playing as an acoustic duo in the way they might have done in a college practice room. Yet, rather than working through the changes of a jazz standard or a blues, here they craft atmospherically textured improvised songs; tone poems that display the sophistication and poetic creativity theyve accumulated since their school days. Tracks like the opening "A Prayer for Peace," "Open Palms," and the "Let the Quiet Speak" are softly textured ballads marked by Crokers breathy, vocal-like tone and Fortners subtle chordal harmonies. There are evocative, almost cinematic moments, as in "Midnight Bloom" where they face off over Crokers dagger sharp, Spanish-tinged motif; the trumpeter playing the bright-caped bullfighter to Fortners grumbling bass-clef bull. Similarly, on "Grace Is Not Gentle," they tumble and leap like modern dancers through a Thelonious Monk-esque landscape of sharp-edged chords and cubist melodies. Throughout all of Play, Croker and Fortner play with a sustained intensity of feeling that speaks to their shared artistry and deep creative connection. ~ Matt Collar