Michael J. Agovino for THE VILLAGE VOICE – Last September, as Cécile McLorin Salvant prepared to take the stage of the Village Vanguard with her trio for the last night in a vaunted Tuesday-through-Sunday run at the jazz mecca, her drummer, Lawrence Leathers, gave a pep talk. By Salvant’s own admission, the first five nights were merely OK. Now, as Salvant huddled in the club’s claustrophobic kitchen-turned-dressing room with Lawrence, pianist Aaron Diehl, and bassist Paul Sikivie, it was time to step up.
“He was like, ‘Guys, we’ve got to do this, I don’t know what’s wrong with everyone!’ ” she says, over a glass of Chardonnay on the Lower East Side. “I’m making it the clean version, but some words were said.”
Suitably amped up, the group then went out and worked their way through a set of standards that make up the bulk of Salvant’s rollicking new double album, Dreams and Daggers (out September 29). “It was fine,” she said of those first five nights. “Do you know when you’re like, ‘It’s fine’? You don’t want that. I’d rather it be a train wreck and it has a thing than, ‘It’s fine.’ ”
Whatever Salvant found on that final night, it was more than fine, and this week, beginning Tuesday, September 26, she’s back at the Vanguard with a weeklong headlining slot. “The Vanguard is a character in this story,” the 28-year-old Salvant says of the album. “It’s part of the sound. And the people there — we should have written their names down.