Jazz Singer Cécile McLorin Salvant Doesn't Want To Sound 'Clean And Pretty'

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Jazz singer Cecile McLorin Salvant has a new album, and we're going to hear my interview with her. I love her voice and her repertoire, which ranges from jazz standards to forgotten old songs, show tunes and originals. Salvant was described in The New York Times as the finest jazz singer to emerge in the last decade. She won best vocalist in the NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll last year, as well as in 2013 and 2015. Her new album is called "The Window." We're going to start with our jazz critic Kevin Whitehead's review of the album. Kevin says this one has the smallest cast of musicians of any album she's made, but her voice is as big as ever.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I'VE GOT YOUR NUMBER")

CECILE MCLORIN SALVANT: (Singing) Well, my sweet chickadee, I've got hot news for you. I've got your number. I know you inside out. You ain't no Eagle Scout. You're all at sea. Oh, yes, you brag a lot, wave your own flag a lot. But you're unsure a lot. You're a lot like me. And I've got your number.

KEVIN WHITEHEAD, BYLINE: Cecile McLorin Salvant has a wide vocal range and pleasing tambour, clear enunciation, charm, good taste, quiet wit, a sense of the dramatic, a knack for finding obscure tunes - a lot of virtues for one singer. Her new album, "The Window," a duo with pianist Sullivan Fortner, leaves her voice more exposed than ever. It presents this jazz singer in the role of superlative cabaret singer, one of those supper club chanteuses who sing familiar standards and seek out overlooked material like jazzy tunes by pop or soul singers or songs from forgotten musicals.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TELL ME WHY")

MCLORIN SALVANT: (Singing) Tell me why you make me feel this way. Could you be the one I dreamed I'd love someday? Tell me why we ever came to kiss. In my dreams, it never happened quite like this.

WHITEHEAD: I love the way she quacks the word like there, not taking herself too seriously. "Tell Me Why" from 1947 by Saul Chaplin, Betty Comden and Adolph Green from a show that didn't make it to Broadway. Cecile McLorin Salvant can treat a tune with kid gloves, make you hear it's beauty. But she's no stranger to blues' feeling.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "EVER SINCE THE ONE I LOVE'S BEEN GONE (LIVE)")

MCLORIN SALVANT: (Singing) So what can I say? I've got it bad, and he's gone to stay. I'm gone. I'm like a king without his throne ever since the one I love's been gone.

WHITEHEAD: Sullivan Fortner is an exemplary accompanist. Backing a star singer takes strength of character. No matter how great a pianist he is - and Fortner gets his moments to shine - this setting is not about him. On song after song, he makes creative choices that never try to steal the spotlight. As usual, the bilingual McLorin Salvant sings a bit in French, including a chanson from 1930, "J'ai L'Cafard," which roughly translates as I've got the blues, and literally, I have the cockroach. Here, Sullivan Fortner plays droll theater-style organ.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "J'AI L'CAFARD")

MCLORIN SALVANT: (Singing in French).

WHITEHEAD: Where some jazz singers treat a song as a launching pad, an excuse to get going, Cecile McLorin Salvant drills down into the song itself, getting it to the story or philosophy of the words. She's so good at that, a couple of breezy lyrics here seem like easy pickings. Anyone can sound smart singing Larry Hart's "Everything I've Got" or Oscar Hammerstein's "The Gentleman Is A Dope." Her offbeat selections aren't always whimsical. The album starts with Stevie Wonder's song "Visions."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "VISIONS")

MCLORIN SALVANT: (Singing) I'm not one who make-believes. I know that leaves are green. They only turn to brown when autumn comes around. I know just what I see. Today's not yesterday. And all things have an ending.

WHITEHEAD: With her laser-like focus, Cecile McLorin Salvant can get pretty intense at times. And there are moments when she pushes her amazing voice a little too far, not least on a few pieces recorded live at The Village Vanguard. On "The Peacocks," saxophonist Melissa Aldana sits in, and there's one raucous episode where she and the singers slide out of sync. In a way, those glimpses of the road to excess make McLorin Salvant's music more riveting. As a character in a movie once said, that quality of personal danger is what makes a star a star. The risks involved make her successes all the sweeter.

GROSS: Kevin Whitehead writes for Point of Departure and is the author of "Why Jazz?" Cecile McLorin Salvant's new album is called "The Window." We're going to hear my interview with her. She was exposed to a lot of different music growing up in Miami, with a father who's from Haiti and a French mother who was born in Tunisia and lived in several African and Latin American countries. We spoke in 2015 after the release of her album, "For One To Love." Her recordings have always had some surprising choices, like this one, "Stepsister's Lament," from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, "Cinderella."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "STEPSISTER'S LAMENT")

MCLORIN SALVANT: (Singing) Why should a fella want a girl like her, a frail and fluffy beauty? Why can't a fella ever once prefer a solid girl like me? She's a frothy little bubble with a flimsy kind of air, and with very little trouble, I could pull out all her hair. Oh, oh, why would a fella want a girl like her, a girl who's so unusual? Why can't a fella ever once prefer a usual girl like me? Her cheeks are a pretty shade of pink, but not any pinker than a rose's. Her skin may be delicate and soft, but not any softer than a doe's is. Her neck is no longer than a swan's. She's only as dainty as a daisy. She's only as graceful as a bird, so why is the fella going crazy? Oh, why would a fella want a girl like her?

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

Cecile McLorin Salvant, welcome to FRESH AIR. I really like that you choose songs in the jazz sound in your repertoire and songs way outside (laughter) of the repertoire, like "Stepsister's Lament." When I heard you sing that live, you said that the first version of that you heard was actually sung by Brandy. Tell us how old you were then and what that song meant to you.

CECILE MCLORIN SALVANT: It was actually not sung by Brandy. It was sung by these two actresses who were in the movie with Brandy who played her stepsisters.

GROSS: Oh, I see.

MCLORIN SALVANT: Yeah. So Brandy was Cinderella and then she had these two awful stepsisters who sing this song.

GROSS: I should've figured that.

(LAUGHTER)

MCLORIN SALVANT: I'll say I was around 10. And I related with it because, you know, it's the point of view of the girl who is often invisible and looked over. And I definitely felt that way and feel that way still a lot in my life. I just didn't feel like I could relate to the beautiful princess or the girl who gets the guy or - you know, I could relate with that yearning and that jealousy and frustration more.

GROSS: What made you think that you could take this song from a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical for children and make it into a really interesting jazz song?

MCLORIN SALVANT: Well, a big part of it is knowing that and trusting that the musicians I sing with would find a sort of groove, a sort of, you know, funky jazz take to it, you know? I knew that if I gave it to the Trio that they would figure out a way to take it out of that realm and make it something that works for us. And sometimes - sometimes I'll present songs to them and they'll be like, are you sure you want to - you really want to do this song? I mean, it - we don't know how to - how we're going to make that work for us. So I think that's a big - a big part of it is knowing that the guys, the band, will figure out a way to make it work.

GROSS: Now, I want to compare "Stepsister's Lament" from "Cinderella," your version of that, with an original song that you wrote that's on your new album. And this is a song called "Look At Me." And the feeling of this song is kind of similar. The lyric includes the line - look at me, why don't you look at me the way you look at all the other girls you see? Can you talk a little bit about writing that song before we hear it?

MCLORIN SALVANT: I wrote that - I have a good friend that started sending me poems via email, and I would respond and we just started writing like that. It had been such a long time since I'd just written poems with, you know, no music. And I was experiencing that friend zone, which is, you know, that's I guess the name for being in love with a friend who doesn't love you back. And I was experiencing that and I felt the need, the urge, to write it out, write it down. And I - a couple months later I started looking at the lyrics and thinking, oh, maybe this could be a song.

GROSS: Well, this is a beautiful ballad. The style of this song is the opposite of "Stepsister's Lament." So let's hear Cecile McLorin Salvant's song "Look At Me" from her new album "For One To Love."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOOK AT ME")

MCLORIN SALVANT: (Singing) Look at me. Why don't you look at me the way you look at all the other girls you see? I'm your friend. I guess I'll always be. But I'm in love with you endlessly. All the time, all of the time I've lost trying to make you come to me at any cost. All I...

GROSS: That's Cecile McLorin Salvant from her new album, "For One To Love." It's a song she wrote called, "Look At Me." So now that you're on stage and becoming famous within the jazz world, more people are looking at you - I mean, literally. Do you like being the focus of attention when you're on stage?

MCLORIN SALVANT: It's weird. I'll say, in a way, I love it. I mean, I do love being on stage. And I've always loved playing a character and being watched doing that. I remember in school, in elementary school, I used to recite poems. We'd have to recite poems. And I would always just, like, roll on the floor, like, just make it such a huge, melodramatic portrayal of whatever it was, you know.

But in another sense, I don't like being the focus of attention. It makes me very uncomfortable. And it's part of the reason I never look at videos of myself or I very rarely listen to my music or even read things that I might've said. It just - there's something repulsive about it to me. Maybe that's a strong word. But yeah, it's just...

GROSS: That's a very strong word.

MCLORIN SALVANT: (Laughter) Yeah, I don't know. I just don't like to be in my own - I'm already myself. So I don't like to be in my own - like, watch myself.

GROSS: Well, we need to talk about your incredible voice. When I listen to you, I hear elements of Sarah Vaughan, Abbey Lincoln, Betty Carter, Billie Holiday. When you started listening to those singers, did you, when you were young, try to copy them to really learn how they did what they did, the way some writers copy paragraphs of favorite writers to better understand the structure and flow of the words in their favorite writers' sentences?

MCLORIN SALVANT: I would say, for certain singers, I definitely went through that. I definitely went through that with Sarah Vaughan. As - I think I started really falling in love with her voice when I was about 14. My mother loves Sarah Vaughan. And she always played her music, from as - you know, as long as I can remember. But - yeah, when I was about 14, I started really checking her out for myself, by myself and thinking, gosh, that voice is incredible. I was - I was really mostly interested in classical singing. But she had - she had something in there that drew me in. She was an absolute virtuoso. And she could have so many colors and textures with her voice.

So it became - when I moved to France and starting singing jazz and studying it really, she was - she was maybe the first person that I would copy. And I - it became less about sounding unique. I didn't even care about that. I just wanted to sound as much like her as I possibly could. And so I'd spend a lot of time listening to her and seeing how I could make my voice sound like that. And then eventually, it moved on to other singers. Billie Holiday was a big one, where I would pay attention to the way she would pronounce words, the way she - even just her accent. All of that became really interesting to me - and vibrato and all of that.

And eventually, I - the more I listened and became obsessed with singers, I feel like the more I realized that I had my own little thing that I could - that I could do. And so this is why I just became obsessed with looking for new singers, unknown singers, people that maybe have been forgotten, and really checking them out and analyzing what they do - and obsessive listening. I think that's the core of my work on music, has been just listening to things and listening to singers.

GROSS: So after listening so obsessively to so many singers, did you ever go through an identity crisis as a singer yourself and wondering, but who am I? I can sound like these people. I love those people. But what is uniquely me?

MCLORIN SALVANT: Oh, still today (laughter), every day. It's a total identity crisis for me of like, is this even - is there even a point in doing this? Is this even relevant? You know, what am I doing? Who do I sound like? I remember as a child - I still today do not have my own handwriting. I just would copy everyone else's handwriting. And now I have sort of a version of my sister's handwriting. And I feel like sometimes I feel that way for my voice. Like, sometimes I'm doing a patchwork, like a bad quilt (laughter) of all the people that I love. But then I'll - I'm very - I doubt myself a lot. And I'm very, very just overly critical. So I know that it's probably not that.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is singer speed of Cecile McLorin Salvant. She has a new album called "For One To Love." Let's take a short break, then we'll hear some music - some more music and talk some more. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. And if you're just joining us, my guest is singer Cecile McLorin Salvant. She has a new album called "For One To Love."

You have such an amazing instrument. I mean, you have such an amazing voice. And you use it with such emotional and tonal and notey range.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: So I also think that, like, writing your own songs is probably helping you find, like, your own musical identity.

MCLORIN SALVANT: Sure, writing my own songs and also the time and care I take in choosing the repertoire. It takes me a lot of time, and it's almost frustrating for the guys sometimes because they're waiting for a new song. And I - it's just so important for me to get the perfect, exact, right song.

GROSS: One of the things I really like about your repertoire is that you go back to early jazz, and you find music from the early 19th century - early 20th century, I mean - and from the 1920s and '30s. And how did you decide to go back that far? Because a lot of singers don't.

MCLORIN SALVANT: I think I'm - I'm fascinated with history and just in general. And I'm always interested in how did - how did this come to be? Why is this the way it is? And even singing classical voice, I quickly became more and more interested with early music, baroque voice. And that became an obsession to me, just figuring out how - who were the ancestors of whatever it is. For jazz, I started checking out people's influences. People that I liked, who influenced them? And then, who influenced those people? And I was very lucky in that my teacher in France, he's a saxophone player. His name is Jean-Francois Bonnel. He knew a lot of this earlier music. And he shared it with me.

And every week, he would bring a huge stack stack of CDs and tell me to listen to it. And I discovered Bessie Smith with him. I had no idea who she was. And I discovered Big Bill Broonzy and Valaida Snow and Blanche Calloway. And - and he definitely stressed the importance of going back and checking out 1920s jazz, 19-teens jazz. And eventually, I became so obsessed with that that I started thinking about vaudeville and minstrel shows and coon songs and all of that. And that's really fascinating. That part of the history of American pop music and entertainment is really so interesting - so, so interesting.

GROSS: I'm glad you said that 'cause the song - the next song I want to play is a Bert Williams song. He's part of, like, the minstrel era. And he is an African-American man who sang in blackface. And I think because of that, until recently he was pretty much ignored. I think his work was considered an embarrassment. But you do what is probably his most famous song, which is called "Nobody." You did that on your previous album, "WomanChild." So I'd like you to tell us why you chose that song and how you thought it would work for you - like, what you did with it that you thought would suit, like, your voice and your personality.

MCLORIN SALVANT: I didn't know about Bert Williams until I read this book. I didn't even know really what blackface and minstrel shows were, let alone that black people actually were blackface performers as well and how much that even influenced all of American entertainment afterwards. So just reading that, just reading that a person can be black and still perform in blackface, making fun of black people for a living and at the same time be a genius and be an incredible entertainer and at the same time be extremely conflicted and feel like - like - just feel terrible for doing that, essentially, which is what Bert Williams felt, from what I gather from what I read - all of that just made - was so incredible to me.

Just reading that was - I just thought that was so fascinating. And it - I felt like I could see it in other places, like today, in music today, in film today. I felt like it was just - it just made so much sense. And so I just looked up the song "Nobody," which is the hit song that he wrote. And it was so amazing. He's talking over music. And then he starts singing the chorus. And it was very funny, of course, because he's - you know, it's like just the pathetic guy who gets no respect. But it was also heartbreaking.

And that's something about - in a song that I love, is when you can find those two elements - just you want to - you don't know whether you want to laugh or cry. And it took me some time to have the courage to actually sing it. I'd thought, well, this is a vaudeville song. I don't know how we're going to approach it. I don't even know, you know, if it - if it'll work.

But eventually, I was just - I was just listening to it so much, and I was so touched and moved by the story and by the song itself that figured I should just just try. And so I gave it to the band. I don't - I think I was in France still when I - when I first started performing it. And I - it just became clear that - that it worked.

GROSS: So let's hear "Nobody." And my guest is Cecile McLorin Salvant. She has a new album called "For One To Love." But this version of the Bert Williams song "Nobody" is from her previous album, which is called "WomanChild."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NOBODY")

MCLORIN SALVANT: (Singing) When winter comes with snow and sleet, and me with hunger and cold feet, who says, here's 25 cents; go and get something to eat? Nobody. I ain't never done nothing to nobody. I never get nothing from nobody, no time. And until I get something from somebody, I...

GROSS: After we take a short break, I'll be back with Cecile McLorin Salvant. She'll tell us about one of the most sexist song she knows and why she sings it on her new album. The album's called "For One To Love." I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE MUSIC)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with jazz singer Cecile McLorin Salvant. She has a new album called "For One To Love." Her repertoire ranges from jazz standards to forgotten old songs, show tunes and originals. When we left off, we heard her version of the song "Nobody," which was the song most associated with Bert Williams, one of the most popular African-American performers of the early 1900s. He performed in blackface.

I'm glad that you decided to go back to the early 20th century and do that song and to not be put-off by the politics of blackface and to just find what is musically interesting in that and what is musically interesting and humanly interesting about Bert Williams in spite of how he had to compromise himself with - by wearing blackface.

MCLORIN SALVANT: Yeah, I think it's just really - it's just the idea of blackface itself is just so - it's not just a terrible thing, I think. There is also the idea of, like, these people are reclaiming, in some sense, something that has been taken from them. There's - I don't know if I'm allowed to say this word on the air, but there's a song called "Run [expletive] Run" that I first heard a couple years ago, and it was by a band called the Skillet Lickers. And it's a white fiddle band, and I was just flabbergasted by how racist it was and how scary it was. But I still found myself, like, kind of enjoying it.

And I looked up the history of that song and that happens to be a song that slaves used to sing amongst themselves, like, literally telling each other that they should run. And it had been transformed. And I think when black performers performed in blackface, they were kind of taking back these slave songs. But it was still a little bit iffy because they were performing, a lot of times, for white audiences who found it hilarious.

GROSS: American music is so complicated in terms of its ancestry.

MCLORIN SALVANT: Yeah, it really is.

GROSS: Yeah, it just goes back and forth, which is great. I mean, you know, it's that kind of, like, cross-breeding of musical styles that makes it so rich. You've also gone back and looked for songs by women composers, like, you do...

MCLORIN SALVANT: Yep.

GROSS: ...A song by Blanche Calloway, Cab Callaway's sister, on your new album. You do some Clarence Williams songs from, I guess, the 1930s. And in addition to finding a lot of old songs, I think you're trying to turn recent songs - some recent songs, or at least one recent song on its head, and kind of reinterpret it. And I'm thinking of "Wives And Lovers," which is just one of the all-time, like, sexist songs. It was a 1963 hit by Jack Jones - music by Burt Bacharach and lyric by Hal David. And they are such a fabulous song-writing team, and I don't know...

MCLORIN SALVANT: Yeah.

GROSS: ...How this particular song happened.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: But why in the world would you sing a song that - why don't you recite the lyric?

MCLORIN SALVANT: (Singing) Hey, little girl, comb your hair, fix your makeup, soon he will open the door. Don't think because there's a ring on your finger, you needn't try anymore. For wives should always be lovers too, run to his arms the moment he comes home to you. I'm warning you.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: Why? Why?

(LAUGHTER)

MCLORIN SALVANT: I just - sometimes I get - I just find things so funny because they're so absurd to me. And I find the humor in it, and I think it's going to be funny. And I don't even think of it, like, as a politically charged thing. But that particular song, I found, actually, because I was looking up sexist songs. I have a really good friend who - I'm a feminist. She knows I'm a feminist. She's like, why aren't you, you know, singing more feminist songs? And I thought, gee, that's true.

So I started trying to do some research, trying to find some songs in the American popular song history - even folk songs or whatever it may be - that had feminist themes to them. And it was very hard. It was very difficult to find, and so I decided let me just check to see - let me just check out if there are any sexist songs, and, of course, that was a lot easier.

GROSS: Yeah, I'll say.

(LAUGHTER)

MCLORIN SALVANT: And that song happens to be - it just happens to be so catchy and it's - I love that song, and I think it's hilarious. And it actually - I remember playing it for a few friends, and we had this big debate on whether feminism was still appropriate, whether it was a real thing, whether, you know - and we started talking about gender and all these things that are really important to me. And I thought, well, that's wonderful, that's - I'm glad that we could talk about these things just from listening to this particular song.

GROSS: OK, so we should hear a little bit of you singing it. So this is "Wives And Lovers" from Cecile McLorin Salvant's new album "For One To Love." So as you listen, go comb your hair and fix your makeup. Here we go.

MCLORIN SALVANT: (Laughter).

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WIVES AND LOVERS")

MCLORIN SALVANT: (Singing) Hey, little girl, comb your hair, fix your makeup, soon he will open the door. Don't think because there's a ring on your finger, you needn't try anymore. For wives should always be lovers too, run to his arms the moment he comes home to you. I'm warning you.

GROSS: That's Cecile McLorin Salvant from her new album, "For One To Love." I feel like there should be, like, giant quotation marks around that song when you sing it...

MCLORIN SALVANT: (Laughter).

GROSS: ...'Cause you're singing it straight, like, I - you know, if you just played that for me, I wouldn't know that you thought, like, that's like an incredibly sexist but very catchy song.(Laughter)

MCLORIN SALVANT: (Laughter) Yeah.

GROSS: Of course it's catchy, I mean, Burt Bacharach wrote the music, like...

MCLORIN SALVANT: Yeah, of course. But I mean, you would still - you wouldn't, I fell like - today - hearing that song today, you wouldn't be, like, OK, I need to go fix myself up and, you know, wax and...

GROSS: No, no (laughter).

MCLORIN SALVANT: And when I sing it live, I - there's a line about curlers - about not leaving your husband with your hair still in curlers. And I don't have hair, really. My hair's really short, so I think that kind of let's people know that I don't really...

GROSS: So I'm just wondering, when you look for sexist songs, what are some of the ones that came up that you decided not to do?

MCLORIN SALVANT: Not to do yet is a song...

(LAUGHTER)

MCLORIN SALVANT: ..."He Hit Me And It Felt Like A Kiss." That one was...

GROSS: Right, Phil Spector produced that one.

MCLORIN SALVANT: Yeah, that one.

GROSS: And that's more of a girl group - like, a...

MCLORIN SALVANT: Yeah.

GROSS: ...Rock 'n' roll girl-group song.

MCLORIN SALVANT: Yeah, and I don't - yeah, that one is - that one definitely stays with me, and I'm thinking that maybe it'll come up. There's other songs that are - I don't know if I would say that they're completely sexist but kind of. You know, there's "When I'm Housekeeping For You" or "I'm Cooking Breakfast For The One I Love." That's not super sexist, but...

GROSS: Oh, that's Fanny Brice.

MCLORIN SALVANT: Yeah, yeah.

GROSS: I kind of like that song.

MCLORIN SALVANT: I kind of like it too.

GROSS: My baby likes bacon and that's what I'm making.

MCLORIN SALVANT: Yeah, (singing) so that's what I'm making.

GROSS: I'm cooking breakfast for the one love.

MCLORIN SALVANT: That's that's not really - it's sexist in the context that it was written. But a man could sing that to me. I'd be very happy to hear it.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: So my guest is singer Cecile McLorin Salvant. She has a new album called "For One To Love." Let's take a short break, then we'll hear some music and talk some more. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: My guest is singer Cecile McLorin Salvant. She has a new album called "For One To Love." I want to talk about the period when you were in Paris. And this is when you were studying voice in college - or was this a college or a conservatory after college?

MCLORIN SALVANT: It was a conservatory at the same time as I was in college.

GROSS: I see, OK.

MCLORIN SALVANT: In Aix-en-Provence.

GROSS: So while you were in France, you studied with and played with a saxophonist and clarinetist named Jean Francois Bonnel. And you were saying that he introduced you to a lot of early jazz. I want to play a song from your first recording that you made in - I think it was 2009...

MCLORIN SALVANT: Oh, yeah, yeah.

GROSS: ...With Jean Francois Bonnel. And I want to play the first track of the album. It's "After You've Gone." So just tell us about where you were in your life as a person and as a singer when you recorded this.

MCLORIN SALVANT: Oh, I was about 18 years old, I think - or 19. And I was just starting to sing jazz and get into the repertoire and listen to different singers and listen to instrumental music. And I was really just starting out it felt like. And I suppose that album was a compilation of my favorite songs at the time. There was no other thought process behind it. It was just, I love these songs, I'll sing them.

GROSS: And why did you choose "After You've Gone"?

MCLORIN SALVANT: It's just one of - it's just one of the songs that I loved at the time. I had heard it by Bessie Smith, and I just really enjoyed that song. There was no other - there was no other thought behind it. It was just, I love this, let me sing it.

GROSS: OK. Well, this is great. This is amazing. This is Cecile McLorin Salvant in her late teens.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: Here we go.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AFTER YOU'VE GONE")

MCLORIN SALVANT: (Singing) Now, listen, honey, while I say, now that you're telling me you're going away. Don't say that we must part. Don't break my aching heart. You know I loved you true for many years, loved you night and day. How could you leave me? Can't you see my tears? Now, listen while I say. After you've gone and left me crying, after you've gone, there's no denying you'll feel sad. You'll feel blue. You'll miss the dearest pal that you've ever had. After the years...

GROSS: That's Cecile McLorin Salvant - her first recording made in her late teens when she was studying in France. So you're a jazz singer, but you studied classical voice for many years - many years - I mean, you're only 26 so...

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: So what am I talking - how many years you could have studied it. But you started when you were really young, so were you listening to a lot of classical music when you were young?

MCLORIN SALVANT: Actually, I wasn't listening to that much classical music, not much more than anything else. We - I was really lucky to have parents who loved all kinds of music. So we'd listen to a lot of different kinds of music - folk music from all over the world, from South America, African music, and classical music was just a part of that. So, no, I would say it wasn't, like, the main thing that I listen to. But I loved the drama of it. I loved the character - having to work on a character. And I loved how, you know, you're pushing your voice to the limits of what it can do, really. It's kind of like ballet for the voice. So...

GROSS: You're talking about opera here?

MCLORIN SALVANT: Yeah, opera. Yeah, so that's what really fascinated me.

GROSS: So when you were making the transition from being a classical singer to being a jazz singer, what did you change about your voice?

MCLORIN SALVANT: I did everything I could to not bring in any of the technical things I got from classical into jazz. And I did everything to really base it on my speaking voice and to just not try to make it sound pretty. That was the thing, like, I never wanted to sound clean and pretty. I always wanted to have kind of a certain natural quality to my voice, and I wish it were more rough than it is.

But I would listen to a lot of - I'd listen to blues singers and sort of try to go more towards that rather than look back at this classical technique that I was - that I had. But I had a hole in my voice. I still do. We call it a hole, but it's an area in the voice where it's air. It's just - there's no - it's just very airy.

And my classical teachers were just so frustrated with me because I would have these deep, low notes that were really strong and the higher register was strong, but right in that middle area, it was really hard. It was like a passage. And many singers go through this and work it out. But I realized in jazz I could just take advantage of that and take advantage of having a voice that was very different in different areas.

Classical singing - everything had to be homogenous and it had to just feel like one continuous flow from top to bottom, bottom to top. And in jazz, I felt like, oh, well, I can sing these deep, husky lows if I want and then sing these really, like, tiny, laser highs if I want as well. And I have no obligation to make it sound like it's just one continuous flow.

GROSS: Well, I'd like to end with one more song. And I was thinking of "The Trolley Song" from your new album, which is a song that Martin and Blaine wrote for "Meet Me In St. Louis" - for the movie starring Judy Garland who sings this in a great scene in the movie. Why did you choose this song?

MCLORIN SALVANT: I - this is one of those where I just became obsessed with the song itself, and there was no other reasoning behind it. I saw the scene in question, and it became my life. It was - I would watch it maybe six, eight times a day, maybe more. Anytime I had a moment, I would sit down, find it on YouTube and watch it. And it just became clear that I needed to sing it, like, I needed to - there was some reason I needed to get to the inside of that song. And, yeah, man, that scene is so amazing. I love it. I'm going to watch it in a few minutes, I think.

GROSS: (Laughter) And this is the same movie that "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" was written for.

MCLORIN SALVANT: Yeah, oh, gosh. Oh, my goodness.

GROSS: Cecile McLorin Salvant, it's just been wonderful to talk with you. Thank you so much, and I look forward to hearing much more of your singing.

MCLORIN SALVANT: Thank you. It's been a pleasure and an honor. And I'm an absolute crazy fan.

GROSS: Well, thank you. And I'm a big fan of your singing, so great to have you on the show.

Cecile McLorin Salvant recorded in 2015. Her new album is called "The Window."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE TROLLEY SONG")

MCLORIN SALVANT: (Singing) I'll go my way by myself. This is the end of romance. I'll go my way by myself. Love is only a dance. I'll try to apply myself and teach my heart how to sing. I'll go my way by myself like a bird on the wing. And I'll face the unknown. I'll build a world of my own. No one knows better than I myself. I'm by myself alone.

GROSS: Monday on FRESH AIR, we'll talk about breakthroughs in our understanding of the immune system and how the body fights disease and heals itself - or attacks itself - and how stress, sleep and state of mind figure into the immune system's functioning. My guest will be Daniel M. Davis, author of "The Beautiful Cure." He's a professor of immunology at the University of Manchester in the U.K. I hope you'll join us.

FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorrock. Our technical director is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer today is Charlie Kaier. Our associate producer of digital media is Molly Seavy-Nesper. I'm Terry Gross.

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