Cécile McLorin Salvant
Appearances
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
It's funny you mention her. Rhiannon Giddens is somebody who I have to thank so much for a lot. I first heard about her through Carolina Chocolate Drops.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
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 white music that I like. And then realizing through her in large part that, no, this is not – This is not just white music.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
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.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
I think I have the spirit of like a kind of a radio DJ slash curator. It's almost like making a mixtape 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 Cole Porter tribute. But I want to find the gems that haven't been –
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
sung and sung and sung over and over again and that we might love and fall in love with.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
You know, a lot of the decisions are very intuitive. Right. But that song for me is not about the fact that it's associated with Barbra Streisand. It's just such an optimistic kind of – Make them happy.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
And also she's just like so strong in that lyric.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
I first started writing songs, well, I think as a kid I wrote one song in my own invented language with my cousin.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Maybe at the time we knew what it meant. Now I don't know what it means.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Lost, yes. And I heard Abby Lincoln. I heard an album of hers called Holy Earth. And it made me want to write.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
That was the title track of my second album. And then, yeah, ever since then I've been writing.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Not the lute. Not yet. I'm writing with the piano.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
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.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
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.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
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 prelude of it. Because that's where all the excitement is. Being far away from the object of affection and looking at them longingly.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Maybe exactly the same as a 16th century. Maybe it's exactly, can she excuse my wrongs?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
At least I didn't fake it. Hat, sir. I guess I didn't make it. Get ready for me, love, cause I'm a comer. I've simply gotta march. My heart's a drummer. Nobody, no, nobody is gonna rain on my
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
If you should love me Don't ever tell me. Show it. That's how I'll know it. In fact, it's better not to show me at all.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Let me yearn. Let me crawl, let me write you a song. And long to belong to you. Write you a song from a distance. Let me love you like I love. Let me love you like I love the moon.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Thanks for having both of us.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Tell me not to live, just sit and putter. Life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
I don't know what I did there. Wow.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
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 as a fan of art and artists.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
It was a half an hour long blues called Murder Ballad that Jelly Roll Morton did for Library of Congress years ago.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Let me tell you one of the things that I've said.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
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 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...
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
I grew up in Miami, Florida.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
I was listening to whatever my mom was listening to, and she loves everything. Cesaria Evora from Cape Verde. We were listening to Yusun Dour from Senegal. We were listening to Los Tres Paraguayos, which is like Paraguayan folk music. We were listening to French music. We were listening to some jazz, mostly Sarah Vaughan, a little bit of Nancy Wilson, but Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
We were listening to folk music, some bluegrass. I could go on and on, actually. A lot of Brazilian music.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
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.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
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.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Franca. It was franca. It was French. It was French at home.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
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.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
In Aix-en-Provence. And so I said, oh, why not?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
It was a great deal. My cousin was there. I've always liked school.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
I always studied music alongside my other school activities.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
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.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
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.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Not so much. Walking down the street? 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.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
It was really my teacher at the music school, Jean-François Bonnel. I had sung for him a Sarah Vaughan song. He loved it. was adamant that I join 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.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
And it was in a small jazz club. It was a tiny jazz club in Aix-en-Provence with like five people in the audience. But it was horrifying.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
I sang It's Only a Paper Moon. 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 Sarah Vaughan.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
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.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
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 Heart and Armstrong.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
If you're doing a Lil Heart and Armstrong imitation, no one's going to really know because they don't know who she is, unfortunately. Right.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Oh, I would love to talk about this.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
The lyric is attributed to this man named Robert Devereaux. The music is John Dowland. Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex, who was Queen Elizabeth's, Elizabeth I's 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.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
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, it's just everything is there.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
once, right, sir? Ooh, 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 clattering. cone should bang. One throw, that bell will go clang. Eye on the target and wham. One shot, one gunshot and bam. Hey, Mr. Ford. I'm fanned out. Your turn at bat, sir.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Car radio, what? I was taking lute lessons years ago. I thought that I would maybe learn a little bit of lute 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.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
He says, better a thousand times to die. Then 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.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Can she excuse my wrongs with virtue's cloak? Shall I call her good when she proves unkind? Are those clear fires which vanish into smoke? Must I praise the leaves when no fruit I find? No, nowhere shadows do for bodies stand. Thou mayst be abused if thy sight be dim. Cold love is like two words written on sand. or to bubbles which on the water swim?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Will thou be thus abused still, seeing that she will right thee never? If thou canst not overcome her will, thy love will be thus fruitless ever. Will thou be thus abused still, knowing that she will right thee never? No, but remember it was I who for thy sake did thy contented. Was I so base that I might not aspire unto those high joys which she holds from me?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
As they are high, so high is my desire. If she this deny, what can granted be? If she will yield to that which reason is, It is reason's will that love should be just. Dear, make me happy still by granting this. Or cut off delays that if I die must. Better a thousand times to die than for to live the still tormented. Dear, but remember it was I who for thy sake did die.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
did I contented better a thousand times to die than for to leave the still tormented dear but remember it was I who for thy sake did I contented
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
In the studio? You screwed something up. In the studio, always. It's funny enough.