The New Yorker Radio Hour - Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

When the jazz singer Cécile McLorin Salvant was profiled in The New Yorker, Wynton Marsalis described her as the kind of talent who comes along only “once in a generation or two.” Salvant’s work is rooted in jazz—in the tradition of Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan and Abbey Lincoln—and she has won three Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Vocal Album. But her interests and her repertoire reach across eras and continents. She studied Baroque music and jazz at conservatory, and performs songs in French, Occitan, and Haitian Kreyòl. “I think I have the spirit of a kind of a radio d.j. slash curator,” she tells David Remnick. “It’s almost like making a mixtape for someone and only putting deep cuts.” And even when singing the standards, she aims “to find the gems that haven’t been sung and sung and sung over and over again.” During a summer tour, she visited the studio at WNYC to perform “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” made famous by Barbra Streisand; “Can She Excuse My Wrongs,” by John Dowland, the English composer of the Elizabethan era; and “Moon Song,” an original from Salvant’s album “Ghost Song.”This segment originally aired on May 31, 2024. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Tell me not to live. Just sit and butter. Life's candy and the son's a ball of butter. Cecile McClure and Salvant is a jazz singer, and she's one of the top singers around today. Someone on the level of Sarah Vaughn and Ella Fitzgerald. But Salvant's repertoire and her approach to music are completely her own, a standard from the American The songbook might be followed by a tune from hundreds of years ago and across an ocean. I once went to see her expecting, you know, how high the moon.

But the first thing out of her was a century-old murder ballot, and it lasted about a half an hour long. Witton Marcellus called her the kind of talent who comes along only once in a generation or two. Cecile McLaurin Salvant is performing at jazz festivals all over the country this summer. I got a chance to talk with her last summer, and she came to perform at our studio at WNYC. Right, sir. Oh, life is juicy, juicy, and you see, I've got to take my bite, sir.

Get ready for me, love, because I'm a comer. I've simply got to march, my heart's a drummer. Don't bring around the cloud to rain on my parade. Live at what I'm shot. Ready for me love because I'm a comer. I've simply got to march my heart's a drummer. Nobody, no, nobody is. Oh, man.

I don't know what I did there. Wow. I am so excited to have you here today, and I have gone to see you at any number of places around New York and not enough, because every time I go, I leave so happy and so surprised by what you've decided to sting on a given night. What goes into those decisions?

It's very nice to hear you say that you're surprised because that's my first priority, I think. I just love to be surprised in life in general by people, by the musicians I play with, by myself. That's huge for me when I'm looking for songs or listening to songs. And even just when as a fan of art and artists Well, this song is so associated with one singer in particular, maybe Barber's Dry Sand, and you take it on head on.

And on another night, I'll go see you, and you're singing. I don't know how many verses that was. We were just discussing this before we came in. It must have been 40-vers-long blues song that no one had probably heard. Yeah, I think it was like a half an hour long. It was a half-an-hour-long blues called Murder Ballad that Jelly Roll Morton did for Library of Congress years. go. This woman who murders her boyfriend's lover and then goes to prison.

And there's a lot of profanity. And I had always wanted to sing it. So for like I sat on it for 10 years thinking where could I ever possibly do it and who would I do it with? And then I had a Valentine's Day concert at Jazz at Lincoln Center. And I thought, wouldn't that be for date night? Wouldn't that just be great? A date night with a little murder involved.

Yeah. Well, let's start from the beginning. You grew up, where? I grew up in Miami, Florida. And what were you listening to at home? And who was filling the home with music? I was listening to whatever my mom was listening to, and she loves everything. Cesaria Evora from Cape Verde.

We were listening to Yus Sundor from Senegal. We were listening to Los Reyes Paraguayos, which is like Paraguayan folk music. We were listening to French music. We were listening to some jazz, mostly Saravan, a little bit of Nancy Wilson, Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin. We were listening to folk music, some bluegrass. I could go on and on, actually. A lot of Brazilian music. And that's all due to your mother.

She has a huge, wide ear, and she traveled a lot in her childhood. And I think she brought back those travels in some way or that traveling sort of feeling. Where did she grow up? She grew up in Tunisia. She lived throughout. Africa. She lived in Senegal. She lived in Cuba. She lived in Dominican Republic. She lived in Honduras. In Haiti. And what was the lingua franca at home? English, French, or both? Franca. It was French. It was French. It was French at home.

Yeah. From what I understand, in fact, from a profile in the New Yorker some years ago, there was a time when you were a kid you thought you were going to study law. Not so much when I was a kid. It was more after high school. I really didn't know what to do. And there was this political science prep school in this small town in France. My cousin was going. They had a law option, like first year law. In a beautiful place, in Esten Provence. And so I said, oh, why not? What a good deal. It was a great deal. My cousin was there. I, you know, I like, I've always liked school. So off you go as a teenager to the south of France to study. law, politics, history, and then something happened. I always studied music alongside my other school activities. Did you play an instrument? Piano.

And you were playing classical, jazz, everything. I guess I was playing classical, but I was not really playing much. I was not practicing. I had to be bribed every week with donuts. to go to class, to go to piano class. I just didn't like it. But I did it for 15 years. And singing?

Singing? I... It's funny. I think singing for me is so social. I don't sing when I'm alone. Or I sing very rarely when I'm alone. Not in the shower, not... Not so much.

It's not... No, no, no. It's very social. It's very communicative. It's about being with other people and telling them a story or telling them a secret. So while you're studying in France, at a certain point you start performing as a singer with a jazz quintet.

How did that happen? How did you have the skills and the nerve to do that all of a sudden? It was really my teacher at the music school. Jean-François Bonel. I had sung for him a Saravan song. he was adamant that I joined the jazz class. I was probably the only native English speaker there, so maybe it gave me a little bit of an edge with singing these standards.

And he was just like, I got us a gig. We're doing a show within like two months of me starting in his class. And it was in a small jazz club. It was a tiny jazz club in Ex-en-Provence with like five people in the audience. But it was horrifying. Tell me about the first night. What'd you sing? I sang, it's only a paper moon.

Say it's only a paper moon. Sailing over a cardboard sea. But it wouldn't be made for... I sang Body and Soul. I sang Lover Man. I sang, You're just too marvelous for words. In my best...

and most intense Ella Fitzgerald impression mixed with some Saravan. So I get the feeling that you're at a certain point early on, you're kind of like a magpie of different styles and voices that your teacher is giving you stacks of CDs to listen to. And one week it's Saravan week, and one week it's Ella Fitzgerald or Billy Holiday or whomever. This is all coming in as kind of information. And none of them wins out. You don't become an imitator of any one of them, do you think? I think as I go through the phase with whoever it is, I am trying to sing as best I can like them.

I think that's what was happening. But I was failing. You can never really sing like someone. So the failing is becoming yourself. The failing is becoming yourself, yeah. And it's interesting, like the singers that he had me listen to, yes, there were those big ones, the famous ones. But what was more interesting was all of the music by people that are completely unknown or not celebrated enough. People like Lil Hart and Armstrong.

If you're doing a little hard and Armstrong imitation, no one's going to really know because they don't know. who she is, unfortunately. Now, my sources tell me that the song you're going to do next is pretty radically different. It's called, can she excuse my wrong? Oh, I would love to talk about this. I want to know everything about it. It was written by an English musician who was born in the 16th century, John Dowland. Tell me about the song.

The lyric is attributed to this man named Robert Devereaux. The music is John Downland. Robert Devereaux Earl of Essex, who was Queen Elizabeth's Elizabeth I'm first favorite, or one of her favorites. And it's an interesting lyric because he talks about his desire and the desire can be read two ways as a desire for her or a desire for power. And what happened to the Earl of Essex is that he was found out in a plot against her and was then, killed, I mean, like, executed by the queen for plotting against her. And the song basically is, it's just everything is there. Now, how did you learn about this song, flipping around on Spotify? Car radio? What? I was taking loot lessons years ago. I thought that I would,

that I would maybe learn a little bit of loot just for fun. And this is like a very, This is like a classic. This is a standard classic. This is don't rain on my parade. In the 16th century. In the 16th century. That's what they were playing at the vanguard in the 16th century. Exactly.

Exactly. He says, better a thousand times to die than for to live thus still tormented. Dear, but remember it was I who for thy sake did die contented. And he does die. It's crazy. Well, let's give it a go. Okay. Let's see if I remember.

Can she excuse my. with virtues cloak shall I call her good when she proves unkind are those clear fires which vanish into smoke must I praise the leaves their shadow bodies stand thou mayst be abused if thy sight be dimmed or to on the water swim Thus abuse it still, seeing that she will write thee never, If thou canst not overcome her will, thy love will be thus fruitless ever Will there be thus abuse it still, knowing that she will write, Remember it was I, who for thy sin did thy contend? Was I so base that I might not aspire

Unto those high joys which she holds from me? as they are Is my desire If she this deny What can granted be To that with tree Should be just Dear Mayor

But remember that she will icon I screwed up some lyrics We're good Okay this is what happens after each song The recriminations begin In the studio? You screwed something up In the studio always

I was, it was It's funny enough I'm speaking with the extraordinary singer, Cecile McLaren Selvon, a three-time Grammy winner for Best Jazz Vocalbum, and Sullivan Fortner accompanies her on piano. Our conversation continues in just a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I've been speaking today with the singer Cecil McClurent Selvon. She's emerged as one of the great jazz artists of her generation. I interviewed in this room, in this studio at WNYC years ago, Riannon Giddens. And she, to me, she does a lot of things, but she does two things at once in the sense that she's a great performer.

But there's an element of her that she's also a scholar. She's a musicologist. She is an evangelist for all kinds of music. It seems to me with different music, you're doing a similar thing that Rianan and Giddens does, is that you're introducing all kinds of things to the stage. You're not just, of course you do standards and Broadway show tunes and things that we associate in her minds with what Saravon did or Ella Fitzgerald. But so many other things are on your mind to give us.

It's funny you mention her. Riannon Giddens is somebody who I have to thank so much for a lot. I first heard about her through Carolina chocolate drops. Her first band. Her first band. I learned about the banjo and what that instrument is and how it's a product of the African diaspora. I did not know. And it felt affirming in a way as somebody who had always loved that music but thought,

oh, this is just some white music that I like. Much like the grunge is what. white music that I like, and then realizing through her in large part that, no, this is not this is not just white music. This is actually music that originated with black folks and with a mixture. So she's huge to me. I actually sing one of her songs in my shows. Which one is that?

It's called Build a House. Oh, yeah. I love that song. But do you feel that you have that in mind, too, that it ain't just by chance, that there's a, that there's a project that you're building over time of introducing certain kinds of music to your audiences, whether it's in French or it's in English? I think I have the spirit of like a kind of a radio DJ slash curator. Like I want, I'm, it's almost. like making a mix tape for someone and only putting deep cuts. That's sort of how I feel a lot of times. If someone is to ask, oh, can you do a Cole Porter tribute? I'll be like, okay, sure, I'll do a Cold Porter tribute. But I want to find the gems that haven't been sung and sung and sung

over and over again and that we might love and fall in love with. And yet we began our conversation or you're being here with Don't Rain on My parade. Yeah. Huge, huge hit. Why do you want to do something that's so familiar and so associated with one singer? You know, a lot of the decisions are very intuitive. But that song for me is not about the fact that it's associated with Barbara Streisand. It's just such an optimistic kind of... Make them happy. Yeah.

And also, she's just like so strong in that lyric. It's not enough that you sing across the centuries and so beautiful. You also write extraordinary songs. Oh, thank you. Tell me about the beginning of songwriting and how you went about it and what you were after. I first started writing songs. Well, I think as a kid I wrote one song

in my own invented language with my cousin. Can you sing it? Shamouda, Shamuda, Shamuda, Shammuda Radi, Shammuda, yeah, Poli Kala, Puru Kutututu. And how old were you? Who knows? Did you have a sense of what lyrics meant? Maybe at the time we knew what it meant.

Now I don't know what it means. Lost to the midst of time. Lost, yes. And I heard Abby Lincoln. I heard an album of hers called Holy Earth. And it made me want to write. Oh, the whole thing from way up high. The very first song I wrote or that I remember writing is a song called Woman Child.

That was the title track of my second album. And then, yeah, ever since then, I've been writing. And you're writing them with the piano, with not the lute. Not the lute, not yet. I'm writing with the piano. One, I have a feeling that that's coming. No, no, no, no. With the piano and with the window.

I like to look out a window. How do you spend your days? Long walk, a lot of writing in the morning. And then eventually get to the piano at some point. And then embroidery, a lot of embroidery. It's a lot of alone time. Yes. And how does that inform the music?

Wow. That's a great question. It is very introspective music And it is music about solitude A lot of it About solitude, about yearning About desire And I think all of those feelings

Are clearly coming from the fact That it's so much alone time Which I need I think I may be pressing my luck But I'm hoping you'll sing Moon song Sure Which is on the album Ghost song from I think two years

years ago, three years ago. Tell me about the song before we hear it. It's a song I wrote about wanting to want and loving that feeling of desire and that feeling of before the big thing happens and almost not wanting the big thing to happen, just wanting to be in that in that prelude of it because that's where all the excitement is, being far away from the object of affection and looking at them longingly. So different than a 16th century, Lutebe's song. Maybe exactly the same as a 16th century.

Maybe it's exactly, can she excuse my wrongs? Yeah, they had desire in the 16th century. Okay. If you should love me, don't ever tell me, show it. That's how I'll know it. It's better not to show me at all. Let me pine, let me ur.

Let me crawl. Let me ride you. And long to belong to hide you a song from a day. Let me love you like a. Let me love you like. I want to thank you so much for being here. Thank you. This was great.

Thanks for having both of us. Cecile McLaurin Salvan joined me in the studio at WNYC in May of last year, along with the pianist Sullivan Fortner. She's playing at the Spoleto Festival in South Carolina this week, and later this summer she'll be at the Newport Jazz Festival, the D.C. Jazz Festival, Springfield Jazz and Blues, and many other venues. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today.

Thanks for listening. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Arts, with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Bolton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Summer. With guidance from Emily Boutin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Parrish, Victor Gwan, and Alejandra Deccan. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.