Cécile McLorin Salvant is not a jazz singer. That’s probably why I like her work so much.
She has recorded and performed in jazz contexts for years, of course, and continues to do so; my favorite of her albums, 2017’s Dreams And Daggers, was mostly recorded with a piano trio, much of it live at the Village Vanguard. But she has also sung in front of string quartets, written a theatrical song cycle that will be released as an animated film later this year, and made an electronic art-pop album. But Salvant’s approach to her material — more and more of which she writes herself — goes so far beyond what the typical jazz vocalist does that it’s brutally unfair to both sides to compare them.
Her range and command of her instrument are stunning. She sounds like if Billie Holiday were an opera singer and a classically trained dramatic actress. And that’s just when she’s singing in English; she can pull all the same tricks in French, like how the dancer Ginger Rogers was famously described as doing everything Fred Astaire did, plus backwards and in high heels.
Salvant’s latest album, With Every Breath I Take, is a collaboration with composer and Secret Society bandleader Darcy James Argue, who has arranged ten songs for her regular trio of pianist Sullivan Fortner, bassist David Wong, and drummer Kush Abadey, plus the 48-piece Metropole Orkest, conducted by Jules Buckley. It’s a grandiose showcase for her voice and her ability to inhabit a lyric; while each track stands on its own, and there are some stunning individual performances, it all flows together as a suite and creates a single emotional journey.
It helps with flow that all ten songs are ballads, and most of them are long-standing favorites of Salvant’s. “It was mostly like desert island songs,” she told me via Zoom from the Netherlands, where she was performing at the North Sea Jazz Festival, “torch songs that I loved, were my favorite, that I felt like they made me cry.”
The record took shape as they were making it, though; when asked if one song represents the heart of the project, she said, “I think if I have to go back… the answer to that question now that it’s done, the center of the record for me is probably [Stephen Sondheim’s] ‘Being Alive’ in some ways. But when I was starting to think about what songs would be on this, I think [Duke Ellington’s] ‘Sophisticated Lady’ was probably one of the first songs that it was like, we should really record that.”
Many of the songs on With Every Breath I Take come from musicals, so they’re performed in character, almost as dramatic monologues, particularly Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s “Barbara Song,” which hits almost overwhelming pitches of raw emotion. When I ask Salvant if acting is part of her approach to singing, she agrees.
“I think this kind of harkens back to, like, me as a kid wanting to be an opera singer. Being sort of fascinated with musical theater is the thing of, that singing can be acting. That singing itself can live in this intermediary space between music and words and also between acting and music… [the] world of acting, of character, but also this really weird kind of non-verbal world of music and all of the things that music evokes that are outside of language, so it’s actually a really fun kind of hybrid space, I feel. And I think that’s one of the most exciting and fascinating things about singing is that it just lives kind of as a bridge between all of these things.”
Salvant and Darcy James Argue have known each other for a long time. They first worked together on Ogresse, a song cycle she wrote almost a decade ago. “Originally,” he recalled, “she approached me about arranging an album of originals that she had in mind. And I thought that was great. And she gave me a few sketches and ideas and I sort of mocked up a few things for her. We went back and forth for a little bit. And then, kind of out of the blue, she sent me this email and said, don’t hate me, but I’ve completely changed course and I have written this fable about a monster who lives in the woods who has an insatiable taste for human flesh, and here’s a voice memo of the whole thing.”
Ogresse, scored for a 13-member chamber ensemble, premiered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2018, and was recorded in the fall of 2019, but just as a tour was underway, the pandemic hit. “We were out in Oakland, actually. We were about to go on at the Paramount at 3 p.m. when they shut down the venue. And we ended up doing a private performance that night for Angela Davis at her home in Oakland. And then that was the last time we did any kind of performing for another year and change.”
An animated version of Ogresse, directed by Belgian animator Lia Bertels, is being prepared for release; you can see a short clip here.
Subsequently, Salvant appeared on the final track from Argue’s 2023 Secret Society album, Dynamic Maximum Tension. But With Every Breath I Take is their grandest collaboration to date.
Argue said of Salvant’s approach, “Cécile is very self-critical, extremely self-critical. And the main thing that she’s attuned to is, Do I believe it? And if there’s a take where she doesn’t believe it, we’re going to do another take… She is interpreting a role. She is interpreting the text. She is trying to prepare for the role like you would in a theatrical performance and doing the same kind of — I mean, I haven’t spoken to her directly about whether she sort of engages in any of the kind of preparatory work that an actor would, preparing for a role. But the goal was certainly to deliver that feeling of emotional authenticity.”
The album was recorded in just two days in December 2025, with Salvant fresh off the plane from New York and working through jet lag so that the 10 a.m. start felt like 4 a.m. to her. Still, songs were dispatched in just two or three takes, which has always been her preference.
“I think that there’s like a certain kind of magic in the first and second and third take,” she told me. “There’s a self-consciousness that comes in when you are starting to do more and more takes, you’re just becoming more and more aware of the studio, and the studio and the recording process itself becomes such a huge part of the sound of what you’re making — the knowledge of that. You start to perform to the studio, if that makes any sense.”
Salvant tracked her vocals in the same room as the orchestra, slightly shielded by barricades, which added an element of pressure. As Argue explained, “There’s something about the tension in that moment of, every subsequent take kind of raises the stakes because there are so many people involved, because there’s so little time, because everyone’s all in the same room, because the slightest mistake from someone at the end of the second violin section can spoil the whole thing. And there’s something to that stress, I think, that actually, at least on this recording, brought out the best in Cécile. So a number of these takes, there’s one magic take, and it’s usually not take one. Sometimes it was, but for some of the other ones where there was just one where it was clearly like, right away everybody knew, including Cécile, ‘Well, that was the take.’ Often that would be take three.”
The most challenging song to record was “Left Over,” because Salvant — who wrote it — moved to the piano and sang while playing it. (While also being filmed, as you can see.) Argue recalled, “That [was] perhaps the most stressful of all of the songs for Cécile to record. It’s her original contribution, but it’s the one where she’s singing and playing piano for the entire string section with the orchestra. There’s no possibility of editing anything in that situation. It is just completely transparent because she’s in the same room, just right there, right next to the principal violin. And so every mic is everywhere. Her voice is in everybody’s mic. All the strings are in her mic. It’s almost like going direct to disc. And so that was the very last thing that we did at the very end of this long and intense and somewhat stressful recording session.”
Salvant’s ability to pick material is one of the things that makes her work so fascinating. She sings plenty of familiar songs, but there are tracks on her albums that might be only the second or third recording of something, ever. I was curious how she finds material that speaks to her.
“It’s a lot of listening to a lot of music, going through stuff that sometimes I don’t even like, or nerding out on maybe a composer or a singer. And then, like, listening to everything that they’ve done. It’s a lot of just going down rabbit holes. I almost compare it to when I was a kid, going on Wikipedia and just clicking the hyperlinks until my brain exploded.”
“Barbara Song,” a number from Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera, came to her via a performance by Bea Arthur, of all people. “And I listened to it from top to bottom and I was like, there are such incredible songs in this opera, in this musical, whatever you want to call it. And then that maybe leads me down a path of like, let me listen to all of Kurt Weill that I can find. And then eventually that’ll lead me to another song.”
“Being Alive,” from the Stephen Sondheim musical Company, was also inspired by an unexpected performance. “I was interested in Stephen Sondheim and I knew the Company documentary with Elaine Stritch. But I think the moment where I was like, I really want to sing that song, was when I saw Adam Driver do it in Marriage Story, the movie. Like, he sings that song randomly at the end of the movie. And I think it’s just so heartbreaking. I think his version is the best version of that song, lowkey. So I was like, Oh wait, I want to do that song.”
Salvant’s discography has taken some wild leaps in recent years. The relatively simple acoustic jazz records with which she made her name have been replaced by chamber music song cycles, laptop art-pop, and now a collection of orchestral ballads. It’s thrilling to watch her bounce from one thing to the next, surprising the listener every time, but is it too much for her label or her audience?
“I feel like professionally, I think it’s probably helpful for whoever is promoting the music to know what’s coming next, right?” she said, with a laugh in her voice. “It’s helpful for audiences who are used to a certain sound and who don’t want maybe to be rattled too much. Like, it’s helpful for them to have just one way you’re doing things. But I think for me, it almost feels like I can’t help it. I sometimes do feel like I try to keep things kind of chill and not do anything too different. And then I just somehow can’t help but make it strange. Like for instance, Mélusine initially just started off as like, I just wanted to do a record all in French. And I could have just done that with my quartet and just done French standards… in a straightahead jazz way. And it would have been fine, but I had to, like, make it into this record about a half-woman, half-snake… about this, like, Haitian voodoo spirit. I just couldn’t leave it alone, you know? I think there’s a compulsion that I have to — like, I’m trying to keep it cool and be chill, but like, I can’t be chill, I guess is really what it is.”
In fact, With Every Breath I Take was originally supposed to be released before her electronic pop record, Oh Snap! But the orchestral session couldn’t be scheduled in time. And without saying what it’s going to be, she promises that her next album will be another left turn, “but for people who know me, they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, you’ve always loved this kind of music, you’ve always sung this type of music.’”
To Salvant, her entire discography fits together quite well. “I think that they’re all kind of in the same genre. I just don’t know what that genre is called.”
TAKE 10
Civil Disobedience – “For Duke P. (aka XYZ)”
Civil Disobedience is a quintet led by bassist David Ambrosio and featuring saxophonist Donny McCaslin, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, pianist Bruce Barth, and drummer Victor Lewis. Their self-titled debut album is an explicit homage to Blue Note Records artists’ attempts to create a soundtrack to the social change of the mid to late ’60s. Think of albums like Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers’ Free For All and The Freedom Rider, or Eddie Gale’s Ghetto Music, but even more obscure. The first track, “For Duke P.”, is a dedication to pianist and composer Duke Pearson, who recorded extensively as a leader and sideman while also working as Blue Note’s A&R man and producer. It was written by vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson; the other tunes on the album are by saxophonists James Spaulding and Harold Land and drummer/vibraphonist Joe Chambers. Everything here swings hard, sticking to traditional forms while leaving room for adventurous explorations. (From Civil Disobedience, out now via Blue Frog.)
Josh Berman Trio – “Property”
Chicago cornet player Josh Berman released his first trio album, with bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Frank Rosaly, on that city’s revered Delmark label in 2015. A Dance And A Hop was a swinging, even bluesy disc with a bouncing energy. A little over a decade later, Berman has reconvened the trio, now with Chris Corsano on drums. You might think, given Corsano’s tendency to appear in free and avant-garde contexts (I once saw him play with Jandek), that this would be a louder, more challenging set than its predecessor, but all the beauty of the first record is intact here. Berman’s horn has a rich, full sound, perfectly balanced by Roebke’s thick, warm bass. The pieces have a calm, conversational flow, like a recording of a rehearsal or a collective working out of ideas. At times they push to the edge of noise, but a core gentleness always reasserts itself. (From Everybody Else’s Life, Too, out now via Corbett vs. Dempsey.)
Little North – “Hold On”
Little North is a Danish trio consisting of pianist Benjamin Nørholm Jacobsen, bassist Martin Brunbjerg Rasmussen, and drummer Lasse Jacobsen. They’ve been around for about a decade; their first album, Yonder, was released in 2016, and they’ve made five more since. In 2023, they came to Brooklyn and recorded their seventh album with two guests: Swedish alto saxophonist Hannes Bennich and US vibraphonist Joel Ross. This is my first encounter with their music, and my initial impression is that they’re very much in the “post-jazz” realm — this is music for fans of E.S.T., GoGo Penguin, and similar acts. That said, the two guests are doing a lot of work and helping launch them into a somewhat more aggro, hardcore jazz zone. “Hold On” is an uptempo burner of a track that allows both Bennich and Ross to trade long, intense lines as Lasse Jacobsen lays down a heavy, hard-charging beat. (From Crossing Currents, out now via ACT Music.)
Seamus Blake – “Listen Here”
Eddie Harris isn’t remembered the way he should be. Back in the late ’60s, he was notable for playing tenor sax, organ, and the Varitone, an electric saxophone, and had a number of hits that blurred the line between jazz and funky R&B. These days he’s probably best known for the song “Compared To What,” recorded with vocalist Les McCann, but his instrumental “Listen Here” was released as a single, split across both sides of the 45 like a James Brown track, and the album The Electrifying Eddie Harris hit #2 on Billboard’s Hot R&B LPs chart and was nominated for a Grammy in 1968. Seamus Blake tackles some of Harris’s best-known compositions, including “Listen Here,” “Compared To What,” and “Freedom Jazz Dance” (recorded by Miles Davis!) on this funky album that features Sam Yahel on keyboards, Tim Lefebvre on electric bass, Corey Fonville on drums, and vocalist Dawn Pemberton. (From The Electrifying Seamus Blake – EH! ‘Plays The Music Of Eddie Harris’, out now via Cellar Jazz.)
Remi Álvarez Trio & Isaiah Collier – “Black Emperor”
Remi Álvarez is a free jazz saxophonist from Mexico. On this album, he and his regular group — bassist Arturo Baez and drummer Gustavo Nandayapa — are joined by Chicago-based saxophonist Isaiah Collier, who’s been covered in this column multiple times. The result is an old-school blowout very much in the spirit of the late ’90s/early ’00s free jazz revival, when artists like David S. Ware, Charles Gayle, Fred Anderson, Kidd Jordan and others were ripping up rooms in New York and Chicago. Honestly, this album reminds me a lot of (and gives me the same howling joy I get from) 2 Days In April, an absolutely titanic double CD featuring Anderson, Jordan, bassist William Parker, and drummer Hamid Drake that I come back to shockingly often. Álvarez and Collier are absolutely going off here, their energy never flagging, as the rhythm section crashes endlessly like waves on a stormy beach. (From Black Emperor, out now via Pesticide Free Music.)
Nils Petter Molvær – “London – Finsbury Park (John Paul Jones)”
Norwegian trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær is best known for his 1997 album Khmer, a swirling combination of jazz and electronic music that set a paradigm for much of his subsequent career. He’s released a slew of albums that lay his dreamlike horn lines over pulsing rhythms and surprisingly crunchy guitars. Be Quiet is not one of those. This is a collection of duo pieces, recorded here and there around the world over the course of several years, with musicians from across the spectrum, from electronic experimenters like Alva Noto and Miki Yui to traditionalists like cellist Anja Lechner and guzheng player Chang Jing. This track features former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, though he’s playing piano here, and it’s a genuinely beautiful improvised ballad that rises to some surprisingly emotional peaks. Be Quiet proves that you should never take a real artist for granted — they can always surprise you. (From Be Quiet, out now via Edition.)
Marshall Allen – “Bass Thrust”
Saxophonist Marshall Allen, who turned 102 in May, has been leading the Sun Ra Arkestra for over 30 years, but in the last few years, he’s been making albums under his own name, and they’re quite varied and very good. 101: An Audio Odyssey was put together by bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, who brought Allen, guitarist Nels Cline, alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, and others to Big Ears for a performance, then took them into the studio. Tacuma brought the tapes back to Philadelphia, where he and Allen are both based, and they continued working, adding a few elements until the album was complete. He’s one of the funkiest bassists in jazz history, having gotten his start in Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time band before going solo, and this is a deeply funky album with some spacy overtones, as the opening track, “Bass Thrust,” shows. Tacuma’s and Allen’s visions mesh beautifully throughout. (From 101: An Audio Odyssey, out 7/24 via Ropeadope.)
Terri Lyne Carrington & Social Science – “Solidarity Song”
Drummer Terri Lyne Carrington’s band Social Science (with guitarist Matthew Stevens, keyboardist Aaron Parks, and multi-instrumentalist Morgan Guerin) is her vehicle for explicitly polemical, political jazz. This, their second album, features pieces with simple, declarative titles like “Identity Song,” “Solidarity Song,” “Climate Song,” “Abolition Song,” etc., and a slew of guest vocalists and instrumentalists. “Solidarity Song,” the track streaming here, has stinging guitar from Marc Ribot, organ from Larry Goldings, lead vocals by Buck Elvis and Miki Howard, and backing vocals from Debo Ray and Kokayi. It plays like a short back-and-forth drama about rural conservatism and I-got-mine myopia versus resistance, and if you live out in the middle of nowhere as I do now (I’m typing this from one of Montana’s reddest counties), it’ll hit home. Your neighbors think like this. But Carrington’s an optimist, and the piece has a happy ending… or at least a note of hope. (From Trip The Night Fantastic, out 7/31 via Label.)
Cindy Blackman Santana – “The Message Is Love” (Feat. Carlos Santana)
Cindy Blackman Santana is best known for her associations with rock stars: She was Lenny Kravitz’s live drummer for close to two decades (though he played the drums on his albums), and has been married to Carlos Santana since 2010, and plays with him. But she started out as a jazz player — I saw her backing Pharoah Sanders in the early ’90s — and has made ten albums as a leader. Coherence, out this month, is her eleventh. The core band consists of saxophonist Emilio Modeste, keyboardist Zaccai Curtis, guitarist Aurelien Budynek, and bassist Felix Pastorius (yes, son of Jaco Pastorius), but the album features guest appearances from Carlos Santana and John McLaughlin (separately and together). “The Message Is Love” is one of the tracks Carlos plays on, and it’s a heavy, stomping fusion piece with an absolutely Godzilla-esque backbeat and squalling soprano sax trading off with the screaming guitars. (From Coherence, out 7/31 via Mack Avenue.)
Steven Bernstein – “Mammoth”
Trumpet player Steven Bernstein has always been an experimenter, someone interested in playing around with sound, genre, and even the horn itself; on many of his recordings, he plays the slide trumpet, which is technically not a trumpet at all but a soprano trombone. He’s done a tremendous amount of work as a composer and arranger, and performed with a wide variety of rock and pop performers, including Aretha Franklin, Lou Reed, Sting, Linda Ronstadt, and Laurie Anderson. His main project for many years has been the band Sex Mob, with saxophonist Briggan Krauss, bassist Tony Scherr, and drummer Kenny Wollesen; they’ve released ten albums on their own, and backed Laurie Anderson on a 2023-2024 European tour documented on the live album Let X=X, which came out in May. Here they are performing “Gravity’s Angel” together:
Anyway, Bernstein has just released two albums simultaneously: in fact, they’re being sold as a double LP or two-CD set, though he wants them to be considered as discrete works. ResoNation Trio features him on trumpet and flugelhorn, with bassist Scott Colley and drummer Nasheet Waits, and it’s a really nice set of music, moody and intimate. “Mammoth” is actually one of the more uptempo numbers — a lot of the record simmers more than it goes off. Still, it’s often quite beautiful, and showcases him as a lyrical and even romantic player.
The second disc of the set is something totally different. Ultra Resonance is a collaboration between Bernstein and producer Scotty Hard, on which the sounds from ResoNation Trio are sucked into the computer, warped and manipulated, and spit out in totally unrecognizable new forms. This isn’t a case of “remixing” the tracks, though Bernstein cites Garvey’s Ghost (the dub companion to reggae legends Burning Spear’s album Marcus Garvey) as an inspiration. Every component of the music is subjected to extreme reconsideration and recontextualization; it’s impossible to even say which trumpet phrase or bass figure originally came from which song. The whole thing is a mind-warping journey into pure sound. But in its own way, it’s as beautiful as ResoNation Trio. (From ResoNation Trio/Ultra Resonance, out now via Royal Potato Family.)
