Cecile McLorin Salvant – A True Original

Cecile McLorin Salvant has a following – as I’m sure does collaborator/pianist Sullivan Fortner, which whom I’m less familiar. Anticipatory buzz fills the hall. Strangers find themselves comparing past experience with the iconoclastic performers.

Resembling a self-declared Christmas ornament (a silver bell), Salvant unfurls “If You Feel Like Singing, Sing”(Harry Warren/Mack Gordon) followed by an unnecessary disclaimer about needing a couple of songs to warm up. The artist is candid and personable.

“Nobody in Town Can Bake a Sweet Jelly Roll Like Mine” (Clarence Williams/Spencer Williams) was introduced by Bessie Smith. Piano sashays. A sassy Salvant bends, shakes her shoulders, throws her head back and insinuates. “I think the first time I sang this, I was 18 and had no idea what I was singing…”

The artist tells us she’s a crier. Recently both the film Wicked (Stephen Schwartz) and the Broadway production of Gypsy (Jule Styne/Stephen Sondheim) evoked tears. “Sullivan had the grace to learn the whole thing. (Gypsy). I don’t think he likes it.” The pianist shakes his head and sheepishly grins. “If Mama Was Married” is light and bright. The vocalist projects youthful frustration. Fortner’s accompaniment is dissonant. Both interpretation and zig-zag piano make “Rose’s Turn” almost unrecognizable.

Between songs, the musician mops his face, folds his arms, lays back on the piano bench, and bounces like a horse at the starting gate. Alchemy between the two artists is remarkable. It’s as if she gives him as long as he wants for instrumental parentheses, sometimes acknowledging the nod that he’s finished, sometimes ignoring it to encourage him further.

One of this evening’s highlights is a song popularized by Dianne Reeves. Fortner’s left hand plays keys, while the right plucks strings inside the piano. (He has his back to us.) Percussive, infectious rhythm manifests as audience bobs heads and taps feet. (Both of his are tapping outside pedals.) Salvant’s take is blues in a coat of gospel: You got to cha-A-ange your life…

“You Are There” (Johnny Mandel/Dave Frishberg) begins as a stage whisper: In the evening/When the kettle’s on for tea/An old familiar feeling settles over me/And it’s your face I see…her eyebrows rise. Piano is wistful, melodic. The story arrives a theatrical scene-in-one.

Bob Dorough’s bracing “Devil May Care” pops up wide-mouthed and physically animated in a tandem swing/jazz rendition. Vocal fits and starts find Salvant tipping side to side. A brief medley from The Wizard of Oz (Harold Arlen/ E.Y. Harburg) includes “You’re Out of the Woods” bookending “If I Only Had a Brain.” On its tail, Wicked’s “Defying Gravity” swells.

Two encores end with a pristine “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (Hugh Martin).

See you in March.

Photos by Jennifer Taylor

Cecile McLorin Salvant
Sullivan Fortner- MD/Piano
December 13, 2024
The series continues March 27 and May 21, 2025
Carnegie Hall