

Part of what makes all the bold cross-genre experiments of Oh Snap work is the sense that Cécile McLorin Salvant is having fun with it—not a prerequisite for big ideas, of course, but it helps with the business of getting people to listen to them. Her virtuosity in jazz convention is evident (the ballad of “Expanse,” the shuffle of “What does blue mean to you?”), but so is her persistent, playful impulse to wander beyond jazz’s walls, whether into Auto-Tuned dance-pop (“A little bit more”), sound collage (“A frog jumps in”), folk (“Take this stone”), and whatever else seems to cross her vast radar. The feeling, ultimately, is closer to the music of someone like Björk or Laurie Anderson than anyone from jazz per se—music whose mix of personal exuberance and intellectual curiosity makes you feel brighter, lighter, and (momentarily) unbound.