Cécile McLorin Salvant is an intriguing jazz singer with a style of her own. Her excellent debut, WomanChild, showcases her vocal range, technical chops and a rare gift for reinterpretation.

Her rendition of “You Bring Out the Savage in Me,” a controversial tune from Valaida Snow, is shocking yet humorous. Her phrasing is meticulous, particularly her enunciation in the following couplet: “My blood boils with the tropic heat / And the rhythm of my heart has a tom-tom beat.” Salvant’s take on “What a Little Moonlight Can Do,” a Billie Holiday’s joint, is quite something else. She pushes her vocals, plays with her tone and swings like hell with the fantastic rhythm section led by the pianist Aaron Diehl. “John Henry” is another outstanding cover that displays her powerful voice and exquisite taste in singing standards.

In addition to the rare repertoire from jazz history, WomanChild demonstrates Salvant’s own songwriting through the title track, “Le Front Cache Sur Tes Genoux” and the album-closer “Deep Dark Blue.” With her immense talent, Salvant is going to soar. This is just the beginning of a promising career.

“A monster about to come alive again,” Kanye West declares in “On Sight,” an opening track on his sixth studio release Yeezus. Over the heavily distorted synthesizer produced by Daft Punk, Kanye charges on, “Black dick all in your spouse again / And I know she like chocolate men / She got more niggas off than Cochran.” The monster is back and he’s darker, angrier, fouler and hornier than a motherfucker.

The lasciviousness is understandable as Kanye is about to become a father for the first time. To cope with his meltdown during Kim Kardashian’s pregnancy, he lets out all the sexual fantasies in “I’m In It”: “Eating Asian pussy, all I need was sweet and sour sauce” and “Put my fist in her like a civil rights sign.” He pushes further, “I’m a rap-lick priest / getting head by the nuns.”

If you could get past the ill rhymes, Yeezus is quite striking in term of musical direction. “Black Skinhead” reduces to a hard-hitting bass and powerful marching drums. In fact, the entire album takes on a minimalist approach. Gone are the complex palettes of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and the lush orchestration of Late Registration. The stripped-down beats allow more attention to the lyrics and that could be a curse as well, especially with lazy, Cam’ron-like punchlines: “Hey, you remember where we first met? / Okay, I don’t remember where we first met.”

Unlike his previous records, Yeezus is pared down to just ten tracks. In the hand of Rick Rubin, the album is coherently crafted to be experienced as a whole. With the less-is-more productions backing up in-your-fucking-face lyricisms, Kanye once again proves to be one of the most compelling artists who is not afraid to push his music to the next level.

For Father’s Day, my wife treated me to Ngọc Hạ Liveshow’s 10 Năm Sân Khấu, which was held in a small auditorium at Northern Virginia Community College. The show is part of a tour that Ngọc Hạ puts together herself to celebrate the 10th anniversary of her professional career. We left the kids with grandma on a Sunday afternoon to attend the show. I thought it would last about two hours the most and didn’t expect much from it, yet the ran almost four hours and surpassed my expectation.

Under the musical direction of pianist Nguyễn Quang and with the support from her good friends Nguyên Khang and Trần Thái Hòa, Ngọc Hạ gave fans around the Metro Area an unforgettable evening. She brought back so much memories from her successful performances including “Tình Hoài Hương” (Phạm Duy), “Đưa Em Tìm Động Hoa Vàng” (Phạm Duy), “Không Thể Và Có Thể” (Phó Đức Phương) and “Mái Đình Làng Biển” (Nguyễn Cường).

Trần Thái Hòa and Nguyên Khang gave their all as well. The duets between Ngọc Hạ and Trần Thái Hòa on “Kiếp Nào Còn Yêu Nhau” (Phạm Duy) and “Tóc Mai Sợi Vắng Sợi Dài” (Phạm Duy) were exceptional. Likewise the duets between Ngọc Hạ and Nguyên Khang on “Chân Trời Tím” (Trần Thiện Thanh) and “Trở Về Mái Nhà Xưa” (Phạm Duy) were outstanding. The surprise, unexpected duet was “Áo Anh Sứt Chỉ Đường Tà” from Trần Thái Hòa and Nguyên Khang.

Although the show was promoted as “nhạc thính phòng” (intimate music), the only performance that was closest to intimacy was Nguyên Khang’s rendition of “Cô Đơn” (Nguyễn Ánh 9), which accompanied only by piano. The rest of the tunes were backed up by the band, which consist of Nhật Huấn (synth), Nhật Hùng (bass), Nhật Hải (guitar) and Doanh Huỳnh (drums).

What made 10 Năm Sân Khấu a memorable show was that the three established singers are at the top of their game. Pianist Nguyễn Quang also had done an excellent job of holding down the keyboard as well as keeping the band in tuned. I am so glad to see Ngọc Hạ made the necessary investment on the show and it well paid off. If the show comes to a city near you, definitely worth checking out.

What do you get when a hot pianist and vocalist pays tribute to a cool jazz trumpeter? Tha shiznit. That’s right. Sexy Brazilian Eliane Elias swings hard, drops some mean blues notes and adds some bossa-nova flavors to Chet Baker’s classics on her latest I Thought About You.

The album kicks off with a savory, mid-tempo swing on the title track and Elias’s bluesy licks are just stunning. “There Will Never Be Another You” continues with a striking balance between bossa-nova and up-tempo swing, in which Randy Brecker recreates some of that intoxicating trumpet lines from Baker. The rhythm continues to drive on “This Can’t Be Love” with Marc Johnson holding down the hypnotic bass lines.

Even though Elias is quite a sensational vocalist, her singing takes a backseat to her piano chops. On the slow “Embraceable You,” which set in an elegant Latin rhythm, her keyboard drives her voice more than complementing it. She’s all about the groove, which makes I Thought About You quite an exciting listening experience. Would love to see her live one day.

After all these years Jamie Cullum still sounds like an energetic whippersnapper. His new release Momentum is like the Energizer Bunny on crack: it keeps on going. Once the speedy, snappy “The Same Thing” started, it just doesn’t stop. With his piercing vocals combined with endless poppy loops, Momentum gets annoying rather quick. “Love for $ale” is a $ad-a$$ remake of Cole Porter’s classic. The hip-hop beat, the tacky singing and the elementary rapping make the tune highly irritating. As the album title suggested, Momentum signifies speed but without substance.

If Trịnh Công Sơn is the Vietnamese equivalent of Bob Dylan and Tuấn Ngọc is the Vietnamese equivalent of Frank Sinatra than Hoài Phương is the Vietnamese equivalent of Kenny G. His latest release The Sounds of Love is a testament. He played smooth-ass sax sounds on top of preprogramed arrangements throughout the entire album.

Put on his rendition of “Ước Gì” in a lazy afternoon and you’ll guarantee to get knock the fuck out before the track is over. He plays the melody note for note and falls perfectly on every beat that has been complied. The soprano sax he blows, particularly in “Tiếng Mưa Đêm,” is snore-worthy.

Then again The Sounds of Love is not meant for listeners like me. The album is geared more toward American patrons in Vietnamese restaurants. The silky sound of Vietnamese pop ballads would go well with the westernized Vietnamese dishes.

Malia’s Black Orchid is pretty damn intriguing. She channels Billie Holiday’s lyricism and behind-the-beat singing to reinterpret Nina Simone’s classics. As a result, her renditions of sensitive songs, including “Four Women,” “Baltimore,” “I Love You Porgy” and “Wild is the Wind,” are dark, broody and intimate.

With the backing of the gentle, understated rhythm section, which consists of pianist, organist and vibraphonist Alexandre Saada, bassist and guitarist Jean-Daniel Botta and drummer Laurent Sériés, Malia uses her smoky contralto to its full effect. Her slow, sensual approaches to “If You Go Away,” “He Aint Comin’ Home No More” and even the mega “Feeling Good” are infectious.

“I Put a Spell on You” pretty much sums up the listening experience of Black Orchid as soon as the album begins and she ain’t lyin’.

For the record, uncle Đức Huy just released one of the lamest pop albums of the year. He tries too hard to be hip and the result shows just that: an old fart trying to be hip. In making Tình Tính Tang Tiếng Đàn Ghi-Ta, uncle Huy goes against every suggestion he gave to the contestants when he was one of the judges in Thuy Nga’s singing competition. Someone is not taking his own advice.

The title track opens the album with uncle Huy singing and strumming his guitar, which is fine and dandy until he applies some Auto-Tune to his vocals. Not only the track loses its rawness of storytelling, it also makes him sounds quite creepy. Speaking of rawness, no one has surpassed the original version of “Đừng Xa Em Đêm Nay.” Something about the boléro rhythm and the effortlessness of Thảo My’s delivery that made the song such guilty pleasure. Around the time the song released, I had a friend who taped it on both side of a cassette and just let it played again and again. Thảo My came across so damn convincing that it was impossible for any man to leave. I used to envy Đức Huy for that. They seemed to be such a perfect couple until the divorce.

On the new release, uncle Huy covers “Đừng Xa Em Đêm Nay” himself with the help of Auto-Tune. Not only his singing is bad, but also his rapping is terrible. The result is that he singlehandedly fucked up his own song. The first version of “Giống Như Tôi” was arranged in a decent cha-cha flavor and he sang the tune with his true voice. It was not spectacular, but it was fun. The new remix is a total disaster. No one wants to hear a grown-ass man whining about being jilted in a club.

“Lời Cuối Cho Em” gets doses of Auto-Tune as well and he turned this sad song into a happy, sunshine tune with fake Jamaican groove. Again the rapping/reading is corny as hell. Uncle Huy, please stop trying to imitate young pop album. Leave it to the kids.

Here comes a moment of kiss up. One of the things I love about my wife is that she always finds new, interesting music for me to listen and write. Her latest discovery is Korean singer Youn Sun Nah. The first time listening to Nah’s latest release, Lento, and I am completely hypnotized. Nah’s style is expressive, eclectic and quite eccentric.

The album kicks off with a soft, intimate title track, in which her soulful voice is accompanied with just a fingerpicking guitar. Then “Lament” gives a glance of her emotional progression. She starts out low and builds up the tension like a fighter who’s not ready to give up. The album takes a surprise detour in “Momento Magico,” in which she uses her scatting skills to duo the guitar. With the Latin groove backing them up, the experience is just electrifying. Then the album returns and dips further into the soul-stirring territory in a reinterpretation of Stan Jones’ “Ghost Riders In The Sky.” Near the end, she distorts her voice (without the help of Auto-Tune) as if she has been possessed.

Youn Sun Nah is quite something else. In Lento, she demonstrates not only her singing ability, but also her sensational artistry. Highly recommended.

Joshua Redman’s Walking Shadows is stunningly relaxing, and yet nowhere near smooth jazz. The album sets off with a lush orchestral reinterpretation of Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein II’s “The Folks Who Live on the Hill.” His hauntingly clear saxophone weaves in and out of the string orchestration like ghost passing through glass. With Billy Strayhorn’s lyrical “Lush Life,” Redman shows off his fine, articulated chops in his second solo. In “Let It Be,” Redman sings Beatles’ lovely melody with his sax. The sophisticated beauty of the album is courtesy of the jazz-with-strings arrangements as well as the support from his friend and pianist Brad Mehldau.