This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

Don't tell me not to live, just sit and putter.

Life's candy and the son's a ball of butter.

Cecile McLaurin Salvant is a jazz singer, and she's one of the top singers around today.

Someone on the level of Sarah Vaughn and Ella Fitzgerald.

But Salvin's repertoire and her approach to music are completely her own.

A standard from the American songbook might be followed by a tune from hundreds of years ago and across an ocean.

I once went to see her expecting, you know, how high the moon.

But the first thing out of her was a century-old murder ballot, and it lasted about a half an hour long.

Witton Marcellus called her the kind of talent who comes along only once in a generation or two.

Cecile McLaurin Salvant is performing at jazz festivals all over the country this summer.

I got a chance to talk with her last summer, and she came to perform at our studio at WNYC.

Right, sir.

Oh, life is juicy, juicy, and you see, I've got to take my bite, sir.

Get ready for me, love, because I'm a comer.

I've simply got to march, my heart's a drummer. Don't bring around the cloud to rain on my parade.

I'm gonna live and live now.

Get what I want. I know how.

One roll for the whole should bang. one throw that bell will go clang

high on the target and wamp one shot one gun shot and bam

hey mr fort, here I am.

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