Great Barrington — Women in jazz are having a good summer in the Berkshires. Pamela Knowles and Grace Kelly each gave concert performances during June. And the Tenth annual Berkshire Gateway Jazz Weekend last month featured two prominent female jazz artists: Roberta Donnay and Alexis Cole. This month, Lulufest, the jazz festival for women-led jazz bands, will be held on July 14 and 15 in Lenox. And on Thursday, July 20, three-time GRAMMY-winning vocal artist Cécile McLorin Salvant appears in concert at Great Barrington’s Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center.
It is safe enough to refer to Cécile McLorin Salvant as a jazz singer, because the Miami-born musician (to a Haitian father and French mother) has a beautiful and wonderfully controlled singing voice that she has used on jazz standards so effectively that Wynton Marsalis once told The New Yorker, “You get a singer like this once in a generation or two.” Also, her three GRAMMY awards are for Best Jazz Vocal Album.
But Salvant studied classical music before learning about improvisation and jazz from reedist Jean-François Bonnel, who backed her with his quintet on her debut album after she won first prize in the 2010 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition.
Salvant composes and performs music and lyrics in French, Occitan, English, and Haitian Kreyòl. And not all of her songs sound jazzy, even when she is backed by jazz musicians.
The only problem with the jazz classification is that Salvant’s music is sure to appeal to plenty of folks who rarely listen to jazz but who love fresh or experimental new art music. For example, audiences at Tanglewood’s Festival of Contemporary Music would likely devour Salvant’s music hungrily.
But, yes, you can call Salvant a jazz singer, even though she stands well apart from other female jazz vocalists by the sheer breadth of her artistry. This is immediately apparent in the self-penned title cut from her latest album on Nonesuch Records, “Mélusine,” which is based on a character of European folklore, a female spirit often depicted as a woman whose lower body takes the form of a serpent. Salvant describes the song as “an ode to solitude, and self-reliance, and being adaptable … This song is about pulling from within yourself all that you need.”
Jazzwise wrote, “Anyone who thinks they already know the full extent of Cécile McLorin Salvant’s artistry should listen to Mélusine without further delay … It’s a remarkable recording in several respects. Beautifully recorded, Salvant continues to confound and delight at every turn.”
When considering the question of Salvant’s genre, Slate Magazine got it right and put it best: “Salvant is simply one of the finest contemporary musicians there is. The range of her new album makes the ‘jazz singer’ label irrelevant.” And Uncut Magazine is perfectly correct when they describe her as “one of the most daring and resourceful vocalists in jazz—or any other genre, for that matter.” They write, “It’s her voice, always expressive and active, that anchors even the wildest experiments.” And they are perfectly correct. It is Salvant’s voice that carries the day, no matter what genre you assign to her. Jazz is probably as appropriate as any other pigeonhole you might find for Salvant, but don’t be surprised if she wins her next GRAMMY in some other category.
Hear Cécile McLorin Salvant in concert at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center on Thursday, July 20 at 8 p.m. Purchase tickets here.
