# CD review: Cecile McLorin Salvant – Ghost Song 2022: Video, CD cover

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2022/03/10/cd-review-cecile-mclorin-salvant-ghost-song-2022-video-cd-cover/
- Published: 2022-03-10T13:33:10+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Ghost Song features a diverse mix of seven originals and five interpretations 
on the themes of ghosts, nostalgia, and yearning. Salvant says, “It’s unlike anything
I’ve done before—it’s getting closer to reflecting my personality as an eclectic
curator. I’m embracing my weirdness!”**

Ghost Song opens and ends with a sean-nós (traditional Irish unaccompanied vocal
style) performance by Salvant, recorded in a church. On track one, she transitions
into Kate Bush’s 1978 classic “Wuthering Heights.” Salvant says of the song, “Wuthering
Heights is a book that really struck me to my core as I was making this album, during
the pandemic. And the best interpretation of the novel is Kate Bush’s song.”

She continues, “It’s the most classic ghost story. I decided I wanted to do an album
called Ghost Song, and I knew that one had to be on it. Then I had the idea to mix
it in with the sean-nós ‘Cúirt Bhaile Nua,’ which binds it to the traditional ‘Unquiet
Grave,’ the last track on the album. The ghost is not haunting me; now I am haunting
the ghost. They parallel each other so well and they’re such different time periods.
I wanted the album to be a circle, with the sean-nós reference at the beginning 
and at the end. So it is the first track but it’s also the last track and it’s also
the middle track, which is how
 I listen to music, walking around my neighborhood,
on a plane, travelling somewhere, putting stuff on repeat.”

“All the songs on the album kind of mirror each other. I tried to create this strange
symmetry. So as you go in from both ends, the songs are sort of matched together,”
Salvant says. “‘I Lost my Mind’ is the center of the Russian doll. I wrote that 
in the middle of the pandemic. There were nights when I wanted to just scream. It
was this deeper part of me saying, ‘It’s OK if this sounds completely crazy, OK 
to just go with the completely crazy thing and not worry if people think you have
lost your mind for doing it.’

“The bands also mirror each other from top to bottom. In terms of the instrumentation,
everything,” Salvant explains. “That’s why the songs are there in that relationship:
they match each other, they’re like fraternal twins, or one is the evil twin of 
the other. I, as the living, am visited by the ghost, and then I go visit the ghost
in turn. I am haunting the ghost and annoying the ghost, which is saying, ‘Get out
of here and go live.’”

1. Wuthering Heights (2:44)
 2. Optimistic Voices / No Love Dying (7:24) 3. Ghost
Song (3:23) 4. Obligation (1:33) 5. Until (6:32) 6. I Lost My Mind (3:41) 7. Moon
Song (3:05) 8. Trail Mix (2:24) 9. The World Is Mean (4:48) 10. Dead Poplar (2:36)
11. Thunderclouds (3:37) 12. Unquiet Grave (4:21)

**Cécile McLorin Salvant, vocals, piano**
 **Paul Sikivie, electric bass, synthesizer****
Sullivan Fortner, piano, Fender Rhodes** **Alexa Tarantino, flute** **James Chirillo,
banjo** **Keita Ogawa, percussion** **Burniss Travis, bass** **Paul Sikivie, bass****
Kyle Poole, drums** **Marvin Sewell, guitars** **James Chirillo, banjo** **Aaron
Diehl, pipe organ, piano** **Daniel Swenberg, lute and theorbo** **Violette, vocals****
Iris McLorin Picot, vocals** **Brooklyn Youth Chorus**

 

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