More than a singer, Cecile McLorin Salvant is an impressionist painter a la Monet but with a voice rather than a brush. This latest album has her in the studio and at the Village Vanguard with pianist Sullivan Fortner, and with him she takes you on to a jazz Givenchy as she sings with the tones of water lilly ponds, bridges, parasols, sunrises, magpies and poplars during these 17 songs of mostly standards.
As Fortner gives sensitive and conversant support as Salvant is delicate on Stevie Wonder’s “Visions” while her vice is clear with a wisp a tactile and delicate “The Sweetest Sound.” The two get harrowing as she’s husky in tone on “Eve rSince The One I Love’s Been Gone” and is dainty on the Francophoned “A Clef.” A noir hue shades her story on “Obsession” with Fortner adding dashes on “Wild is Love.” A beret of bohemia is added with Fortner on organ for “J’ai L’cafard.” Her timing is as perfect as Mort Sahl’s on the humorous “The Gentleman is a Dope” and with a vibrato like Garland, she is easy on “Were Thine That Special Face” and draws you in on a spacious “Trouble is a Man.” A nine minute opus of “The Peacocks” includes Melissa Aldana on the tenor sax to close out the album, almost like an extra frame for the final painting. This one’s a work of a bohemian!