Flawless nonchalance at a treacherously difficult art comes as axiomatic for American vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant – the Wynton Marsalis-hailed, Grammy-winning, unflashily charismatic jazz singer who often suggests she could turn the phone book into a spellbinding libretto. For all that, the announcer’s warm up to her Saturday gig at the EFG London jazz festival – “you’ll be taken on a journey you will never forget” – might have been queried by anyone comparing it with her tightrope-walking Ronnie Scott’s shows of a few years back.
But no Salvant performance is without its revelations – such as her exquisite account of the 1958 Cy Coleman classic You Fascinate Me So, or her jolting upward wail on the phrase “my heart will break, fired out of a melancholy dream-walk on Coleman’s With Every Breath I Take. Her forensic precision brought a gimlet stare to The Threepenny Opera’s The World Is Mean, Sting’s Until had its lyrics seamlessly compressed over her barnstorming stride-to-post-bop partner Sullivan Fortner’s rolling piano rhythms, The Trolley Song leapt off an exhilaratingly fast-boogieing Fortner intro, and Oliver’s Where Is Love? And Pirate Jenny’s The Black Freighter were visited in the encores. It was an exposition of inconspicuously controlled, finely-honed artistry, even if saxophonist Jason Yarde’s and pianist Andrew McCormack’s fusion of horn-hollering improv and spikier notions of melody had furnished some invaluable jazz balance in their supporting set.
Elsewhere, on the festival’s Friday launch night, the Kings Place Venus Unwrapped series hosted Lara Jones and Megan Roe’s spirited mix of punky guitar/sax ferocity and electronica as J Frisco, bassist Alison Rayner’s intimate ARQ, a tentative-to-ecstatic reunion of all-female 1980s Latin-fusion sextet The Guest Stars – celebrating the innovative Blow the Fuse promoting organisation, and the late jazz-enabling dynamo Debbie Dickinson. Later in the shoebox basement of Camden’s Con Cellar bar, devoted young originals including drummer Sam Jesson, saxophonists George Crowley (unveiling both his techno and post-bop leanings) and Alice Leggett simultaneously cherished where jazz has been, and relished where it might be headed.
•The EFG London jazz festival continues until 24 November.
