Géraldine Laurent was born on January 18, 1975, in Niort, in western France, and became one of the leading French alto saxophonists of her generation. She began on classical piano at the Niort conservatoire and switched to the alto saxophone at twelve. After a literary baccalauréat in 1993 she started a musicology degree and stopped after its first-cycle diploma, then went back to the saxophone with Floris Nico Bunik, a teacher at the Niort conservatoire, where she earned a jazz diploma.

In the early 2000s she settled in Paris and worked under her own name and with the drummer Charles Bellonzi and Christophe Joneau's quartet, with whom she recorded Lavaud Gelade (2003) and Ici & maintenant. In 2003 and 2004 she also took part in contemporary dance projects with the Ballets Atlantiques, directed by Régine Chopinot. A first appearance at the Calvi jazz festival in 2005 was followed by unusual attention in the press: the saxophonist Jean-Louis Chautemps praised her in a column in Jazzman in April 2006, and the same magazine ran a feature titled "Le mystère Géraldine Laurent" in September 2007.

That autumn she released her first album under her own name, Time Out Trio, for Dreyfus Jazz, with the bassist Yoni Zelnik and the drummer Laurent Bataille; it mixes standards by Wayne Shorter, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman and Hoagy Carmichael with one piece of her own. In 2008 she received the Académie du Jazz's Prix Django-Reinhardt and shared the Victoires du Jazz award for instrumental revelation with the pianist Yaron Herman. The drummer Aldo Romano brought her into his quartet with the bassist Henri Texier and the clarinettist Mauro Negri for Just Jazz (2008), and in 2010 into his tribute to Don Cherry, Complete Communion to Don Cherry, with the trumpeter Fabrizio Bosso.

Around Gigi (Dreyfus Jazz, 2010) was her tribute to the composer and saxophonist Gigi Gryce, recorded on January 19 to 21, 2010 at Studio Ferber in Paris with the pianist Pierre de Bethmann, Zelnik and the drummer Franck Agulhon, and produced by the label's founder Francis Dreyfus; five of its twelve pieces are her own, and it won the Académie du Jazz's Prix du disque français in 2010. Looking for Parker (Bee Jazz, 2013) followed in a bassless trio with the guitarist Manu Codjia and the drummer Christophe Marguet, playing a Charlie Parker program.

Her working quartet since 2015 has the pianist Paul Lay, Zelnik and the drummer Donald Kontomanou. It recorded At Work (Gazebo) in March 2015 with the pianist Laurent de Wilde as producer, six originals and pieces by Jobim, Monk and Mingus, which took the Académie du Jazz's Prix du disque français in 2015. Cooking (Gazebo, October 18, 2019), again produced by de Wilde, has ten of its eleven pieces written by Laurent, and won the album of the year award at the 2020 Victoires du Jazz. She was named an officier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in the winter 2021 promotion, and at the 2023 Victoires du Jazz she won artist of the year and, for the Cooking quartet, tour of the year.

Outside her own bands she records widely in Paris. The list includes the guitarist Cyril Achard's Visitation (2016), Chansons! (Via Veneto Jazz, 2017) with the guitarist Fabio Zeppetella, the organist Emmanuel Bex and the drummer Roberto Gatto, La Chose commune (Le Triton, 2017), a record built around the Paris Commune with Bex and David Lescot, and the pianist René Urtreger's Premier Rendez-Vous (2017). In 2024 she was one of four altos on Altesques with Jon Gordon, Baptiste Herbin and Pierrick Pédron, played on Trenet en passant, a Charles Trenet songbook led by the pianist Guillaume de Chassy with the singer André Minvielle, and was a guest on Médéric Collignon's Arsis Thesis. In 2025 she joined Yves Rousseau's sextet on Shabda and made Twenties (Jazz Eleven, February 28, 2025), a set of 1920s standards under the name The Hookup with the bassist François Moutin, the drummer Louis Moutin and the pianist Noé Huchard.

Laurent plays the alto with a woody, round sound that listeners have compared to a tenor's; she explained in a Selmer interview that she listens more to tenor players and trumpeters than to altoists and works in the low register, and that she admires the purity of Ella Fitzgerald's voice. She names John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Sonny Rollins and Eric Dolphy as influences, and her records lean on the post-bop and bebop repertoire: Parker, Gigi Gryce, Mingus, Monk, Jobim and the Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry books. Her first records lean on standards, and the reviewer Marc Zisman described Cooking, built mostly on her own tunes, as straightforward jazz that aims for strong feeling. She has also led a freer improvising trio with the bassist Hélène Labarrière and the drummer Éric Groleau. AllMusic lists her style as post-bop.