The Window / Cecile McLorin Salvant

The world first learned of the incredible vocal artistry of Cecile McLorin Salvant when she won the prestigious 2010 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. In just under the span of a decade she has evolved from a darling of jazz critics and fans, to a multi-GRAMMY® Award winner, to a prescient and fearless voice in music today. In life and in music, McLorin Salvant’s path has been unorthodox. The child of a French mother and Haitian father, she was raised in the rich cultural and musical mix of Miami. She began formal piano studies at age five and started singing with the Miami Choral Society at age eight. Growing up in a bilingual household, she was exposed to a wide variety of music from around the world through her parents wide-ranging record collection. While jazz was part of this rich mix, her adolescent and teenage years were focused on singing classical music and Broadway. It was in France that McLorin Salvant began to really discover the deep roots of jazz and American music, with the guidance of instructor and jazz saxophonist, Jean-Francois Bonnel. Bonnel’s mentoring included bringing McLorin Salvant stacks of albums, covering the work of jazz and blues legends as well as its lesser-known contributors. Working through these recordings, Salvant began building the foundation needed to thrive and occupy a special place in the august company of her predecessors. Three years later, McLorin Salvant returned to the US to compete in the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. On the urging of her mother she entered the contest, but with little sense of what was awaiting her. She took top honors.

The Window is an album of duets with the pianist Sullivan Fortner, explores and extends the tradition of the piano-vocal duo and its expressive possibilities. With just Fortner’s deft accompaniment to support McLorin Salvant, the two are free to improvise and rhapsodize, to play freely with time, harmony, melody and phrasing. Thematically, The Window is a meditative cycle of songs about the mercurial nature of love.

REVIEW:

Shifting between studio recordings and several live performances made at New York's Village Vanguard, Salvant and Fortner commune over a deftly curated and deeply enveloping mix of standards, covers, and one Salvant original, "À Clef," sung entirely in French. For a singer who has drawn well-earned comparisons to the pantheon of great vocalists with names like Ella, Aretha, and Billie, Salvant has an almost magical ability to make each song her own. Of course, Fortner is due equal credit for this transformative quality. A virtuoso in his own right, he has a pristine touch and lithe improvisational skills, drawing tastefully upon classical, post-bop, and stride styles, often within the same song. That he and Salvant play with such élan, but still manage to never get in each other's way, speaks to their immense skill and creative empathy.

-- AllMusicGuide.com (Matt Collar)