It's been a very busy year for Cassandra Wilson. Her success with the album Blue Light 'Til Dawn has kept her on the road, across the pages of countless magazines, and without a thought in her head, so to speak. "My goal is to wake up!" Wilson laughs as she reflects on where she's been and what lies ahead. "It depends on what happens by the end of the year with Blue Light. I just don't think about that. If I find I'm up and I'm breathin', hey, I've achieved my goal! Point me in the right direction."
To say that Wilson has crossed over musically would be an understatement. As long as she kept to her recent Brooklyn, M-BASE'd roots, playing that edgy, angular, hip-hoppy jazz, it was pretty easy to call her a postmodern jazz singer, a cutting-edge something or other. But Wilson's creative spirit has kept her from being predictable. For Blue Light, she sang covers of Robert Johnson classics "Come On In My Kitchen" and "Hellhound On My Trail" along with music by Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison as well three of her own numbers, including the title tune. The results were applauded not only by the jazz press, but by such "nonmusic" publications as GQ, the Village Voice, and Time magazine, which called her "the most accomplished jazz vocalist of her generation ... as exciting as any singer working in pop or rock." And Rolling Stone, in an issue titled "The Hot Issue," gave her a two-page spread, one devoted to a photo of her sensually draped across the top of a piano. Have we got the next Madonna on our hands? Hardly.
And yet, it's amusing, and confounding, that Wilson's album ended up on the Billboard Jazz chart. (It's still there, hanging at #11, as of this writing.) Certainly, Blue Light isn't a Contemporary Jazz album, referring to Billboard's other chart that covers either smoother/lighter jazz or instrumental elevator music. But it's not pop or rock, either. In any event, labels elude Blue Light just as the beauty of dawn can't be frozen in time. How do you follow up an album that appeals to so many listeners yet prides itself on being so unique? This from an artist so musically diverse that when the subject of rap and its influence on her comes up, her only response is, "I haven't thought about it."
On the one hand, there were the vague references to tomorrow, as if the business side of things was beyond her control. On the other, the shy Wilson did find time to talk about where she's at now, and how much it has to do with her current work with musical director/guitarist Brandon Ross and, especially, producer Craig Street (the craftsman and driving force behind Blue Light). The level of candor and musical intimacy she expressed seemed like an about-face: "Through the confirmation of Blue Light, I feel more confident about sharing those emotions that are just really close to me; I feel more comfortable doing that and writing and arranging music with that kind of lyrical content--that's really about my life and times and expresses what's goin' on every day, day to day."
As for the creative process itself, Wilson says, "Right now, I'm concentrating on writing. Because I've started playing the guitar again, that opens a whole new space in my mind musically. It used to be the piano; at one point, it was a drum machine, synthesizer, and piano, sometimes even drums; I have a drum kit here. Right now, it's the guitar. I like playing around with open tunings, creating very strange chords with very unusual inversions to get the desired effect. That's how I start the process. As for rhythm, it emerges to support what I've already started."
To hear her band live (at Chicago's Park West) confirms that this process of emotional involvement and "unusual inversions" is already underway. Along with Ross, bassist Lonnie Plaxico, violinist/percussionist Charles Burnham, percussionist Jeff Haynes, and drummer Lance Carter paint an aural picture of what one can only imagine on Blue Light'Til Dawn: One is struck seeing the group on stage as a collection of folk musicians, playing acoustic instruments, with an African tribal vibe that's both mesmerizing and irresistible. Wilson, adorned in a flowing white dress with dreads and the occasional acoustic guitar, is flanked on either side by a variety of sounds, principal among them being Burnham's razor-sharp violin and Ross' evocative, mood-altering guitar stylings.
Clearly, Wilson, a native of Jackson, Miss., is at home in this obviously more rural setting, swaying as she looks out onto a mixed crowd of young and not-so-young, black and white music lovers. More often than not, her elbows up, she points to her audience, belting out lyrics and sounds, but mostly relying on nuance and groove, her husky, sultry voice blending to an equal level with the band.
Betty Carter's influence is heard, what with her playful and ingenious approaches to lyrics and overall sound. For this writer, Shirley Horn (as well as John Martyn and Michael Hedges) also come to mind as she and the band play material from the new album, including Mitchell's "Black Crow" and Morrison's "Tupelo Honey" (with additional lyrics from "Angel" by Jimi Hendrix). Wilson's delicacy and lilt with a lyric and her subtle approach to rhythm seduce in a way not unlike what Horn does.
By the time Wilson returns for an encore of Johnson's "Hellhound On My Trail"--with guitarist Ross her only accompanist--something apparent has become quite obvious: the audience is eating out of her hand; they clearly "know" her music, hooting and joining her as they've done all night, only more so. "Chicago was the best," she mentions when talking of her most recent U.S. tour. "There was an intimacy there that was soothing and healing for me."
Not since Billie Holiday has a jazz singer criss-crossed the boundaries between jazz and pop with such reverence and authenticity. And yet, if you take Cassandra Wilson's smoky, sexy alto and put it next to some traditional (read: pre-dixieland) material, the argument as to whether or not she's a "jazz" singer becomes irrelevant. Hearing her perform with her band is akin to entering a musical universe unlike anything you'll hear on pop or rock radio stations. "I like the instrumentation," Wilson says, "so I'm gonna stay with it. This band is definitely interesting; it's still very vibrant and has a lot of possibilities."
Similar to the best jazz singers, she articulates like the players she plays with. No wonder, she's rubbed shoulders with some of the best young musicians over the course of her relatively short career (her age is a mystery; one story lists her as being 38). The most prominent are alto saxophonist/composers Steve Coleman and Greg Osby. In a more mainstream vein, Wilson shared the music on her 1988 recording, Blue Skies, with pianist Mulgrew Miller, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, and Blue Light stablemate Lonnie Plaxico.
But the difference between Blue Light and the recently issued After The Beginning Again (the remaining material she did for jMT, recorded in 1991), which features a cast of players she originally made a name with, is striking if not downright puzzling. One is reminded--when listening to her own "Redbone" and "There She Goes," or even such familiar tunes as "'Round Midnight" and "Baubles, Bangles And Beads"--that she wants you to get close to her and the music, but only so much. The angular rhythms and melodies remain slightly off-center and funky, the tone and attitude a tad more assertive yet distant.
If Wilson were to repeat with a variation of Blue Light 'Til Dawn, it would be hard to blame her. The album's success, in part, was similar to Blue Skies, Billboard's #1 jazz album for 1988. The 1994 DB Readers Poll (see Dec. '94) honored Wilson as jazz's top Female Singer, breaking mentor Betty Carter's five-year lock on the spot. (In the same poll: the 5-star-rated Blue Light ended up placing third as Jazz Album of the Year, behind Joshua Redman's Wish and Charlie Haden/Quartet West's Always Say Goodbye.) And the latest sales figures have Blue Light at over 150,000 copies sold in the U.S., 250,000 worldwide. Maybe chicken feed to Mick Jagger and friends, but for a "so-called" jazz musician, we're talking big numbers.
As a result, Blue Light 'Til Dawn has become the reason for so much of what's driven Wilson these past 12 months or so. A six-week European tour--with a one-show interruption to Rio!--brought her to the end of '94; just in time to begin to think about where she goes from here. This past year also saw Wilson's acting debut in the recent Arnold Schwarzenegger/Emma Thompson movie, Junior. In addition, she added songs to the Disney movie Miami Rhapsody, and was part of two tribute albums--one to the artist formerly known as Prince (Bob Belden's When Doves Cry), the other to Van Morrison, No Prima Donna. Wilson was also the featured vocalist in the National Public Radio/Lincoln Center broadcast premiere of Wynton Marsalis' Blood On The Fields.
Clearly, there is a significant critical and commercial consensus surrounding Wilson's artistic moves toward a less-definable, alternative means of expression (and this, on Blue Note, a label that prides itself with the motto: "The finest in jazz since 1939"!). The paradox is that she ain't what you think she is, there's no formula, and she's making it. A look at her live shows (including her Park West engagement) offers some insight. Ed Gerrard, Wilson's manager and someone familiar with the pop market, stated it this way in a recent profile on the big business of jazz: "The number of young people who show up to Cassandra's shows is truly amazing. I don't know if they're better educated or just more open, but they're there and they're receptive. They look at jazz as 'alternative.'"
The roots for this unconventional music stem from, among other things, Wilson's ability or inclination to allow her music to change even as she reconnects with her past. In this case, her move has been toward a softer, dreamier, steamier style. What happened? "Those songs that I chose to sing have a special place in my heart," says Wilson, referring to the repertoire on Blue Skies, the music that served as a kind of warm-up for Blue Light. Laughing, perhaps from nervousness, she adds, "I don't wanna sound corny, but they do. Especially 'Shall We Dance,' because I used to watch those musicals when I was a kid, and I used to fantasize through that music."
But that was then, way back in childhood. How could she sing about mid-century Hollywood romance, especially given her roots? "I had to find a way to make the music make sense for me. It was very intuitive," Wilson pauses. "I remember what happened...all of a sudden I started singing this song, and I was doing this dance, and I thought, 'Oh, okay, now I can do it!' There was something about being able to dance to it and sing it to myself in such a way that made sense for the body movement."
As if to ground it all in some kind of history, Wilson adds, "I was deep into Betty and Sarah [Vaughan]--and I still am. But to a larger extent, I was more into a particular body of music: Oklahoma [that's right, the musical], anything that Shirley Jones was in, Carousel, Pal Joey." Needless to say, Wilson has been looking beyond her mentors for inspiration. Blue Light's move toward, what Wilson calls, "something primordial, basic man-woman energy," suggests that Pal Joey has taken on yet another new persona.
Returning one more time to the subject of crystal balls, Wilson states, "It's a day-by-day process." There's been some talk of future work with M-BASERS Coleman and Osby, but when it comes to seeing her current success as a map for the future, Wilson maintains, "If there's somethin' happenin', I don't know about it. I can tell you, nothing's etched in stone, and I don't like the idea of making a copy of Blue Light 'Til Dawn."
As for the new look, a look that accents her natural beauty with more seductive poses and a goodly amount of makeup, Wilson says, "I don't have any problems with it." You mean, the sex-object thing doesn't occur to her? "No. It's a stage thing, and people can't grasp your features unless you use makeup." Keeping the temperature just right, Cassandra Wilson adds casually: "I don't wear anything when I'm on the street. Except for my clothes, of course!"
Source: Down Beat, Jan 1995 v62 n1 p22(4).
Author: John Ephland
COPYRIGHT Maher Publications 1995
