Music

“I can look at many of these songs, and see that this is an event that really happened, or a feeling I’ve lived through myself… It’s almost like a diary entry.”
—Cécile McLorin Salvant
America’s jazz legacy in one captivating voice

“A singularly arresting voice” The Wall Street Journal

“The finest jazz singer to emerge in the last decade” The Times

“Absorbed the music’s history and made it her own” The New Yorker

INTRODUCTION

Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald… And following in their footsteps comes Cécile McLorin Salvant. Extending the lineage of America’s big three female jazz vocalists, the 28-year-old persuasively embodies a “jazz-informed artistry of the highest class” (The Guardian) with poise, soul, sensuality and virtuosity.

No jazz singer in recent memory has won more honours more quickly than this rising star. Born and raised in Miami to a French mother and Haitian father, Salvant studied classical piano and voice from an early age, discovering jazz later while studying law in France. Concerts in Paris followed swiftly, and her first album Cécile was released in 2010. Soon after, this amazing young singer came from nowhere to win the world’s most prestigious jazz contest – the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocal Competition.

Her second album WomanChild in 2013 gained critical acclaim with several awards in the DownBeat International Critics Poll; a third album, 2016’s For One To Love, led the young artist to further success with a “Best Jazz Vocal Album” Grammy Award. Her latest album Dreams and Daggers (2017) confirms Salvant’s status as a great performer at her creative peak.

“You get a singer like this once in a generation or two,” says Wynton Marsalis, whose Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra has twice toured with Salvant. The malleability in her vocal timbre and projection combine with a distinctive, thoughtful theatricality and a deft incorporation of different musical styles like blues, folk, classical, make her an artist who can turn any song into a compelling personal statement.

Juilliard-trained pianist Aaron Diehl and his trio complement Salvant’s musical ideas and help to bring both standards and new compositions to life.