When Cecile McLorin Salvant arrived at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC to compete in the finals of the 2010 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, she was not only the youngest finalist, but also a mystery woman with the most unusual background of any of the participants. When she walked away with first place in the jazz world's most prestigious contest, the buzz began almost immediately. The New York Times now calls her 'the finest jazz singer to emerge in the last decade.

"I can look at many of these songs, and see that this is an event that really happened, or a feeling I've lived through myself", McLorin Salvant explains. "That's what makes it so difficult to share. It's almost like a diary entry".