Cécile McLorin Salvant
Cécile McLorin Salvant Meets the Bill Charlap Trio
92nd Street Y, NYC, July 18, 2019
Reviewed by Alix Cohen for Cabaret Scenes
Photo: Gianna Bertoli/Michael Priest Photography
To attend a concert by Cécile McLorin Salvant is to place oneself within her gravitational field. The artist’s elegant presence and outsized artistry transport. Music is her native language. Unique interpretation, through the prism of her acutely controlled voice and iconoclastic sensibility offers an entirely new listening experience. Salvant is a Stradivarius.
Richard Rodgers’ “The Sweetest Sounds” showcases extraordinary range. Octaves shift like stunt diving. Bill Charlap hardly touches the piano keys during the vocal. The performer strolls a bit, head tilted, taking in the faces she can see. “I Feel Pretty” (Leonard Bernstein/ Stephen Sondheim) arrives subtly shy and flirty. Salvant sings the composer’s notes along with her own, making them companionable.
“Misty” (Erroll Garner/Johnny Burke) floats in on Peter Washington’s resonant bass and Kenny Washington’s lightly brushed cymbal. We believe every word. The artist takes jazz liberties yet maintains the song’s essence.
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“On my own…” climbs from the depths.
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“Too much in love” drifts down like a leaf. “Poor Butterfly” (Raymond Hubbell/John L. Golden) is ethereal without being wispy. Her lightest note emerges unfrayed. The piano acts as plumb line.
“The next song took me about 15 years to understand. I actually sang this at my sister’s wedding. When we play it, you’ll see that was inappropriate.
” Salvant seems appealingly ingenuous. Sondheim’s familiar “Send in the Clowns” is performed with elongated or clipped unexpected phrases.
It’s simply gorgeous. With “Who could foresee” the artist takes several steps back, looking genuinely surprised. We watch a puzzling out; piano is symbiotic.
Also breathtaking are a bitter, exhausted “Lush Life” (Billy Strayhorn), which I mistakenly thought would never be better than Johnny Hartman’s version, and a partly dulcet, partly cool-as-satin version of “Sophisticated Lady” (Duke Ellington/ Mitchell Parish) as you’re likely to hear.
“Mean to Me” (Fred E. Ahlert/Roy Turk) is mid-tempo, bouncy. The phrase “I stay home every night” flows out and back like a trombone slide. Piano embroiders and Salvant snaps her fingers and does a little dance to a deliriously up-tempo rendition of Cole Porter’s “I Get a Kick Out of You.
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An excerpt from “Glitter and Be Gay” (Bernstein/Richard Wilbur from Candide) bookends fast, complex, unmelodious piano. The vocalist’s distinctive contribution makes one really hear shattered the pride and pathos in its lyric. She paints, but one wishes for a full rendition.
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Instrumental breaks that seem to jettison melody rather than explore or ornament are not to my taste. Musicianship is otherwise excellent.
Cécile McLorin Salvant is extraordinary and memorable.
