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| Vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant |
Many jazz singers have complete command
of the bandstand. Watching greats such as Dee Dee Bridgewater, Carmen Lundy,
and Rene Marie work the stage, and an audience is like watching a Broadway
production. Then you have jazz singers such as Liz Wright and Gretchen Parlato who
stand before the microphone and sing their butts off and that’s it. If it
weren’t for their seductive and alluring voices, they would bore you senseless,
but at their performances, you are enthralled from start to completion by every
lyric they sing. The multi-Grammy winner Cecile McLorin Salvant fits in the
latter category. Unlike Bridgewater, Lundy, and Marie, Salvant doesn’t possess
much flash or sass, but the stagecraft she lacks she makes up with the purest
voice in jazz. Salvant played the Michigan Theater Sunday afternoon in Ann
Arbor, Michigan as part of the Monterey Jazz Festival’s all-star touring band,
backed by four top jazz musicians on the scene pianist Christian Sands, the
band’s musical director, trumpeter Bria Skonberg, saxophonist Melissa Aldana,
bassist Yasushi Nakamura, and drummer Jamison Ross. The two-hour concert
started with Salvant refashioning Betty Carter’s “I Can’t Help It,” getting the
near-capacity crowd ready for an afternoon of a hodgepodge of music. After singing
two songs, Salvant set in the audience and watched her
band-mates stretch out on some standards and some originals. Each member shared
equal time in the spotlight. Aldana, a rising talent on the saxophone, showed
her virtuosity on her original “Castle,” and Ross, the singing drummer a la the
late Grady Tate, gave the audience a taste of his vocal gift, belting “A Sack
Full of Dreams.” Sands delivered the singular mic dropping moment, taking the
piano through a cross-fitness workout on a classical piece. I interviewed Sands
two days before the concert, and he said he initially planned for a career as a
classical pianist, but an instructor pushed him into jazz because Sands had a bad
habit of improvising while playing classical pieces, which is a felony in classical music circles. This iteration of the Monterey Jazz Festival touring band is the
youngest in recent memory and includes more accomplished women musicians than
in past tours. Overall, however, the
concert lacked cohesion, and it was clear the band hasn’t been touring together
long. Salvant said the band toured for a month, which isn't sufficient time for musicians with such distinct chops to gel as a unit. The set list was all
over the place with music by Donny Hathaway, Betty Carter, and standards and originals sprinkled here and there. The saving grace, however, was watching Salvant do
her thing.
