'The Window', an album of duets be between C�cile McLorin Salvant and pianist Sullivan Fortner, explores and extends the tradition of the piano-vocal duo and its expressive possibilities. With just Fortner's deft accompaniment to support McLorin Salvant, the two are free to improvise and rhapsodize, to play freely with time, harmony, melody and phrasing.
The world first learned of the incredible vocal artistry of C�cile McLorin Salvant when she won the prestigious 2010 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. In just under the span of a decade she has evolved from a darling of jazz critics and fans, to a multi-GRAMMY� Award winner and a prescient, fearless voice in music today.
Thematically, 'The Window' is a meditative cycle of songs about the mercurial nature of love. The duo explores the theme across a wide repertory that includes Richard Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim, the inner-visionary Stevie Wonder, gems of French cabaret, and early Rhythm and Blues, alongside McLorin Salvant's brilliant, original compositions. Just as a window frames a view - revealing as much as it hides, connecting as much as it separates - each song on the album offers a shifting and discerning perspective on love's emotional complexity. McLorin Salvant sings of anticipation and joy, obsession and madness, torment and longing, tactics and coyness. 'The Window' traverses love's wide universe, from the pleasure of a lover's touch with its feelings of human communion, to the invisible masks we wear to hide from others and from ourselves.
Touched at every moment by McLorin Salvant's brilliance, The Window is a dazzling new release from an artist who is surely, to quote Duke Ellington, beyond category.
Press:
The album's highlights confirm the duo's extraordinary range. The Buddy Johnson blues Ever Since the One I love's Been Gone is transformed into a melodrama of torch song inflections, firm falsettos and coy asides. The strident delivery and circus organ accompaniment of J'ai L'Cafard is an authentic evocation of chanson. - **** Financial Times
McLorin Salvant is no ordinary singer. Most of the selections here are American classics by Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and the like, yet Salvant uses her formidable voice and interpretive intelligence to reveal unsuspected angles. She has the ideal accompanist in Sullivan Fortner, a pianist of equal originality. - The Times
