CÉCILE MCLORIN SALVANT

• Reduced mobility
• Magnetic loop

Like few others, she represents the latest great phenomenon of vocal jazz, perhaps because her talent goes far beyond the sung word. In little more than a decade, Cécile McLorin Salvant (Miami, 1989) has become a legend in the history of jazz. In 2010, after studying with her first mentor, saxophonist Jean-François Bonnel, she won the vocal jazz category of the prestigious Thelonious Monk Competition almost unchallenged.

Since then, three Grammy awards have added to her aura, with monumental recordings such as her first albums Cécile and Woman Child, as well as such brilliant later works as Dreams and Daggers, Window or last year’s Ghost Song. And on top of all this, she has also been involved in all kinds of projects, both musical, such as Woman to Woman (an all-female group led by pianist Renee Rosnes), and extra-musical – Cécile’s passion for theatre, fashion, painting and illustration is well known.

Her meteoric career is based not only on her original and exclusive way of performing jazz – hers is a highly hypnotic, emotional jazz recitation – but also on her ability to renew the already comfortable patterns of vocal jazz, reinventing the style on the basis of a new expression and a new concept, just like Cassandra Wilson did in her day, the other great divinity who continues to grace the international jazz scene with her presence. Th fact is that Cécile, like Cassandra, lives music, not only as a singer, but also as a creator, as an intellectual She is an author more than a performer, and this is evident in each of the adventures she undertakes.

The daughter of a Haitian doctor and a French mother, everything about her proves that her genius is no accident. So much so that she is able to represent the future of vocal jazz with absolute naturalness. The New York Times once called her the best heir and saviour of the jazz essences of such iconic singers as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan. Since then, she has added more concerts to her annual tours and the press has never stopped praising her singing because what is important about Cécile McLorin is not her voice, nor her interpretative qualities, nor even her knowledge of jazz itself… what is important is the way in which this woman lives each song, each inflection, with a rapturous emotional intensity.

Now she returns to JAZZMADRID to once again reap the applause of her generous legion of fans. She literally overwhelms her audience, but not with artifice or shortcuts, but rather with the sincerity she brings to each song. Only she knows how to turn each of these compositions into stories, into intimate moments, endowing them with a coherence and a narrative that only the greatest are capable of. She presents the album Mélusine.