Cécile McLorin Salvant provides operatic highs at the EFG London Jazz Festival

Some 10 years after releasing her debut CD, Cécile McLorin Salvant has united the global tributaries and theatrical roots of jazz into a sensuous single voice.

At this gig, the repertoire ranged from Kate Bush to Bertolt Brecht and the range of inspirations was just as wide. Yet she put her stamp on all, swooping through the entire vocal range and expanding single words from a whisper to a shout.

The programme opened with three originals. The first was inspired by “two gloomy bassists I once knew”, the second by a pithy remark from a friend and the third by a quote from the French author Colette. Here background discords settled into mellow grooves, angular abstractions burst into life and light-touch lilts jogged along with a merry gait.

Salvant draws out the narrative design of her poetic lyrics by varying pitch, sonics and tone. Here, guttural lows were followed by operatic highs, vowels were relished, compressed or stretched and pure tones, quietly delivered, merged completely with Alexa Tarantino’s accompanying flute.

Composers credentials established, the repertoire changed tack. The doo-wop obscurity “I Want to Know”, recorded by the Gay Poppers in 1960, was delivered sour and dripping with menace, and she lived every syllable of Brecht and Weill’s vengeful fantasy “Pirate Jenny”. And then “The Unquiet Grave”, sung authentically as a Scottish lament, segued into Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights”, which was utterly transformed.

The band expertly finessed emotions in their supporting role and developed moods of their own. Pianist Glenn Zaleski’s two-handed virtuosity shone, Marvin Sewell shook the house with bottleneck guitar, and percussionist Keita Ogawa mimicked the whump and thump of tablas on a tiny tambourine.

But the focus was Salvant, and she maintained her grip through a long and demanding set. It peaked with “Ghost Song”, a searing tale of lost love and the title track of an upcoming release. The samba finale was airy and light, the dark-humoured encore, “Barbara’s Song”, also from The Threepenny Opera, explored the rigours of sexual mores.

The evening opened with a short well-worked duo set from young Birmingham-based saxophonist Xhosa Cole. He opened unaccompanied, with a single upward glide, then scattered the melodic fragments of an original, “Andy’s Shuffle”, over firm lines from Joe Downard’s bass.

Cole was slightly tense at first, but his tone gained breath as he fully relaxed, and he was soon flowing freely. The ballad “I’ve Got a Crush on You” came next, played to the full, and then Billy Strayhorn’s elegiac “Isfahan”. The saxophonist’s fluency and control impressed, but, more importantly, he has a strong enough voice to make Monk’s evergreen ballad “’Round Midnight” his own. The set ended with Monk’s “Played Twice”, appropriately playing with tempo and time. An assured performance from a young rising star.

★★★★☆

‘Ghost Song’ will be released by Nonesuch on March 4 2022; londonjazzfestival.org.uk