(Nonesuch)
From breezy swing to scampering synths, folksy harmonies to stark wails of the soul, Salvant’s crystalline vocals shine across her ingenious experiments
When the US-raised French-Haitian singer Cécile McLorin Salvant played Ronnie Scott’s for the first time as a 25-year-old in 2014, the awestruck atmosphere recognised a young multilingual jazz artist of rare gifts – but it was soon apparent that her sublime technical skill as a singer wasn’t the half of it.
Salvant had all the jazz tools: coolly hip timing, improv quick-wittedness, the crystalline sonic clarity of her early model, Sarah Vaughan. But she could also conjure up a dream world of her own that listeners would willingly follow her into. Her new album, Oh Snap, is a set of 12 originals and one cover that she created on her own over four years, before adding her band. She experimented for the first time with computer-generated sounds to draw on grungy pop and intimate folk music and expand on the classical-vocal education and extensive jazz input she acquired while living in France in the 2000s. Salvant says her enthusiasms as a visual artist also liberated her for this adventurous step-change.
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