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Duke Arts Presents

Cécile McLorin Salvant

Saturday, April 15, 2017 | 8:00 pm

Baldwin Auditorium


Featuring Sullivan Fortner, Piano

Cécile McLorin Salvant, who recently won her first GRAMMY for Best Jazz Vocal Album, is the shimmering young star of the jazz world. “Ms. Salvant has it all,” raved The New York Times. “If anyone can extend the lineage of the Big Three — Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, and Ella Fitzgerald — it is this virtuoso.” So captivating was her Duke Performances concert last season that she is the rare artist to be invited back for for the second season in a row.

Salvant makes an electric connection with live audiences. “Resoundingly eloquent, whether growling the blues or barely breathing, Salvant has inbuilt swing, an actor’s stagecraft, an instrumentalist’s precision of nuance, and an appetite for dusting off rarely performed songs,” declared The Guardian. In the mold of her idols, Vaughan and Abbey Lincoln, McLorin Salvant makes every song utterly her own. Joined for this concert by gifted New Orleans pianist Sullivan Fortner, she has fast become jazz’s must-see vocalist.



Cécile McLorin Salvant's "Look At Me"

from her album, For One To Love

Cécile McLorin Salvant

Cécile McLorin Salvant - I Didn't Know What Time it Was (Live at Dizzy's)

Fred Hersch with Sullivan Fortner

Turnaround (Ornette Coleman)


"Cécile McLorin Salvant is an extraordinary revelation of contemporary vocal jazz. Her voice possesses amazing expressive authenticity coupled with outstanding control."

—Le Jazz Hot