Cécile McLorin Salvant

A dozen years ago, Cécile McLorin Salvant seemed like a once-in-a-generation jazz vocalist, a singer whose expert control and emotional nuance made her peerless in the present. It was surprising for Salvant, even: Raised in Miami by parents from the Caribbean, she did not first find jazz particularly appealing as an art form, particularly one she would pursue. While studying other subjects in France, though, she began singing it as an attachment to home; by the time she was 21, she not only had a record deal but also the prestigious top prize in the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz International Vocals Competition. On her first several acclaimed albums, she tackled standards and archival obscurities with the care and wonder of a researcher, always finding something new within the confines of a very good piano duo, trio, or quartet, often anchored by the great Sullivan Fortner.

But Salvant only now seems to be discovering how limitless her artistry might be. For 2022’s Ghost Song, she covered Kate Bush and Kurt Weill but mostly wrote songs about her interiority, supplanting piano jazz with organ-based eccentricity and folk-pop exploration. On the dizzying 2023 album Mélusine, she summoned mythology in multiple languages, her voice performing acrobatics of intimacy and enormity. And on 2025’s audacious and commanding Oh Snap, she leaps into svelte disco on the title track, goes on a synthesizer dance trip for “Eureka,” and unfurls languid vocals over a stuttering trap beat on “Second Guessing.” There is still vocal piano jazz on Oh Snap, but even it moves with a new freedom, as when Salvant howls within the band’s rhythmic tumult during “What Does Blue Mean To You?” A visual artist, filmmaker, and writer, Salvant is still unlocking parts of her artistry—and we get to listen and watch in real time.