'She has poise, elegance, soul, humor, sensuality, power, virtuosity, range, insight, intelligence, depth and grace,' Wynton Marsalis asserts. 'I've never heard a singer of her generation who has such a command of styles,' remarks pianist Aaron Diehl.

'She radiates authority,' critic Ben Ratliff wrote in The New York Times in response to one of her post-competition performances, and a few weeks later his colleague Stephen Holden announced that 'Ms. McLorin Salvant has it all.... If anyone can extend the lineage of the Big Three - Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald - it is this 23-year-old virtuoso.'