Top 29 Quotes & Sayings by Cecile McLorin Salvant
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American musician Cecile McLorin Salvant.
Last updated on December 23, 2024.
Eventually, 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 do. 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.
I was brought up in a house with a lot of appreciation for music, all kinds of music, including jazz. But I never knew that it could really be a career. I didn't know any jazz singers. I never saw live jazz. I only heard these records.
I like bold statements. I'm very nearsighted, and I'm terrible at the whole contacts thing. I figured, 'Why not get some glasses that are fun, that contrast with my skin tone and brighten things up.'
I never wanted to sound clean and pretty. In jazz, I felt I could sing these deep, husky lows if I want and then these really tiny laser highs if I want as well.
My compositions are, I would say, like pages ripped from a diary that I don't really want to share, but that I almost feel the need to share. It's a way for me to get things out that I can't get out in life, you know, in real regular conversation with people.
Jazz sometimes can be really complicated and inaccessible to people because they don't know what to start with. You can start with something that you love, but if you start with something that you hate, then it's like, 'You know what, I hate jazz.' It took me a lot of time to catch on to jazz, too.
My dad was born in Haiti, and my mom was born in Tunisia. She is the daughter of a white French woman and a black, half-Guadeloupian, half-American man. My mom traveled the world a lot. She went through Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. She just got to experience a lot of different cultures, and that came through my childhood.
Thelonious Monk was one of the musicians I most connected with early on. I'm a huge Betty Carter fan, and the way that Abbey Lincoln and Shirley Horn grew immensely from the time they were young is so inspirational.
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. 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 the middle area, it was really hard.
I was lucky enough to grow up in a house where we listened to all kinds of music. We listened to Haitian, hip hop, soul, classical jazz, gospel and Cuban music, to name a few. When you have access to that as a child, it just opens up your world.
Most of the people that I learned and experienced jazz with have been with foreign white people, mostly from France. Excluding my family.
Jazz in the 1920s and '30s was dance music, teenage music for parties, for being wild and young. There's this punk feeling I really love. It was something so radical and different and new and not codified. People didn't have a definition of what they were doing.
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 do.
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.
I wasn't listening to that much classical music - not much more than anything else. I was really lucky to have parents who loved all kinds of music.
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.
I did everything I could to not bring in any of the - 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.
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.
I doubt myself a lot. And I'm very, very just overly critical.
I remember as a child 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.
I think 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 are the ancestors of whatever it is.
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 - I have no obligation to make it sound like it's just one continuous flow.
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 - 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.
I think when black performers performed in blackface, they were kind of taking back 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.
I do love being onstage. And I've always loved playing a character and being watched doing that.
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.
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.
I had a hole in my voice. 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.
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.
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