London-born pianist of Barbadian and Vincentian descent Sultan Stevenson’s second album El Roi is styled as an artistic statement, musically conveying the estimable twenty-four-year-old’s thoughts and emotions around concepts of faith and identity. ‘El Roi’ means ‘God of Sight’, one of the names for God in the Bible. The album is a continuation and concentration of themes taken up in his 2023 debut Faithful One, developed with the same dual format of piano trio (a close simpatico unit with Jacob Gryn on bass and Joel Waters on drums), and an expanded group with trumpeter Josh Short and an energising performance from tenor saxophonist Soweto Kinch, taking up the reins from Denys Baptiste who held this role on the first album.
On Faithful One, there was a slightly noticeable sense that the album’s success and satisfaction were elevated by the quintet tunes benefiting from the ‘elder statesman’ Denys Baptiste’s experience and facility, whereas the trio tunes at the heart of El Roi form a five-strong stand-alone suite that finds a greater concision and cohesion in its composition, group interplay, and improvisation. It’s still very much in the post-bop school, but less driven by those crunching Coltranesque changes and all those stacked fourths out of McCoy Tyner.
In the piano suite ‘Arise’, ‘My Unbelief’, ‘Purpose’, ‘Wisdom’ and ‘I Believe’ (entitled ‘Those Who Believe’), the concept as given is “to take the listener on a journey from a place where there is no hope or belief and transform them to a place of total faith” – a journey explored musically through improvisation and various recurring motifs and themes embedded in the five compositions.
The album is ebulliently tasteful throughout – the jazz of Downbeat rather than The Wire – and intensely vibrant without being overly dramatic in a dark teatime of the soul way. Recorded by Ru Lemmer at the appropriately named Temple Music Studio, and mixed and mastered by Dave Darlington, the production also takes another step forward from its predecessor with a beautiful clarity of warmth in the sound that makes each instrument a sonic pleasure in itself.
There are many ways to express faith through music, and Stevenson is perhaps more of a kin with Messiaen – “a true music, that is to say, spiritual, a music which may be an act of faith; a music which may touch upon all subjects without ceasing to touch upon God” – than the line of Charles Ives or Arvo Pärt, for whom dissonance and polytonality expressed doubt and the struggle to achieve faith. Even ‘My Unbelief’ remains devoutly inside tonically.
Another kind of tonic is the album’s concise running time of twenty-nine minutes for eight tracks. The benefits of this discipline are borne of a strong thematic focus and a lightness, but it doesn’t afford much time for soul-searching. The suite ‘Those Who Believe’ shows that Stevenson takes on more extended structures with increasing confidence, driven by that strong motivation to express religious fervor. The rapid consolidation between Faithful One and this fine sequel, as his musical and spiritual vision unfolds, makes a Faithful Three a most enticing prospect.
Sultan Stevenson – Piano, Jacob Gryn – Bass, Joel Waters – Drums, Josh Short – Trumpet/Flugelhorn (tracks 1, 2 & 8), Soweto Kinch – Tenor Saxophone (tracks 1, 2 & 8)
