NEW YORK--With one album, "Blue Light 'Til Dawn," Cassandra Wilson has both fulfilled and refuted the predictions made for her by countless critics, industry executives, and jazz insiders. The Blue Note recording, which has been rising steadily on the Top Jazz Albums chart since November, is atravelog through shadows and mood, signposted with genre-bending songs made jazzy by Wilson's impeccable musicianship.

What makes "Blue Light" so significant is that, while it reinforces Wilson's reputation as the heir apparent to divas Betty Carter, Carmen McRae, Abbey Lincoln, and Sarah Vaughan, it does so with roots material that tweaks the conventions of the pop, blues, and folk categories from which the songs come, as well as jazz itself. Wilson's success, which has been predicted in jazz circles virtually from the start of her career in the early '80s, is now coming through a stylistic side door.

"It's a career record," says label president Bruce Lundvall, "a landmark for her, no doubt. I think she discovered what she wanted to do and took it a big step forward. I love the record because, for the first time, you really hear her voice and it is riveting. The quality of that voice is raw and filled with emotion. She finally found herself."

Wilson essentially agrees. "I think I did reveal more of myself on this record," she says. "What's happening is I'm beginning to show the more spiritual aspects of what I do, the emotional side. I think that I've been so engrossed with the 'jazz discipline' for so long that it's taken a lot of energy, intellectually, from me. This was an opportunity for self-examination. It's like being at the crossroads. When you place yourself inside a context that's radically different from what you're used to, you have to re-evaluate yourself, who you are, what you're trying to say."

ON THE (JAZZ) WATERFRONT

Wilson has said quite a lot in the last 10 years. She has notched nine records as a leader, and made numerous contributions to the works of others, most notably the Brooklyn musicians of the celebrated M-Base collective. She has always been staunchly avant-traditional, boasting both the inclination and chops to cover jazz's idiomatic waterfront.

In this case, however, her waterfront includes the rustic territories of the deep South. Her "blue light" is one of reclamation, in which soul songs penned or made famous by Robert Johnson, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, and Ann Peebles provide the kindling for a kind of smoke and smolder that actually illuminates her heritage.

It is a liberating light, as social as it is musical, for the 37-year-old Wilson follows an African-based vocal tradition that emphasizes rhythm and nuance raised high by the spirit. Hers is a sound both primordial and principled--an aching haunt, taut with sexual energy. "When we discussed the material we wanted to record," says album producer Craig Street, "we both realized we were talking about songs that deal with lust, with sexual rituals and patterns. Considering who she is, what her strengths are as a singer, the song selection became obvious. I felt that I knew a side of her that others didn't, the side that's been influenced by Joni Mitchell and Bonnie Raitt and blues musicians, people like that. Early in her career she may have been shy about acknowledging her interest in those artists. I thought that we should put her in an acoustic environment that could bring that out." Guitarist Brandon Ross, who did many of the album's arrangements, adds, "When we did our demos, I had a glimpse of Cassandra's inner person, the folk singer, the blues singer. It was as clear to me as a photographic take that this is where she's coming from, where she needs to come from. I heard her voice in relation to guitar music, string-based music, and I knew that with these songs, we had to frame her with spare surroundings." Clearly, Wilson's less-is-more renditions of "Hellhound On My Trail," "Tupelo Honey," "Black Crow," and "I Can't Stand The Rain" are a far cry from the conspicuously progressive music heard on her previous albums. On the JMT issues "She Who Weeps" and "Jump World," for instance, she conveyed a preoccupation with the politics of black music by striding into the swell of M-Base's calculated modernity and idiom-melding; here, she achieves vocal dignity by subtraction.

"Blue Light" eschews the sonic swirl favored by her Brooklyn confederates, players like Steve Coleman, Jean-Paul Bourelly, and Greg Osby. Instead, it presents a hollow of pedal-steel guitars, resonating Nationals, and minimalist percussion. Wilson's voice radiates with an eerie, piercing glow--like the naked light in Picasso's "Guernica." The soul-baring effect, which resulted from a potent synergy created by Wilson, Street, and Ross, speaks well for the serendipitous nature of collaborative art. "What we came up with is very removed from the original conception," she allows. "I wanted to do a record of Stax material or Motown songs from the '60s and '70s, Marvin Gaye kind of stuff. It just evolved from there. I think there's still a bit of that feeling in the !the title track^, which was written a year or two ago, which gave birth to the whole project. We began with an idea and it just veered off in another direction, then it veered off in another direction, and we kept shedding layers."

FOOTHOLD IN FOLK

Wilson grew up in Jackson, Miss., the daughter of jazz guitarist/bassist Herman B. Fowlkes; he was responsible for her early exposure to the jazz greats. Her introduction to music, however, did not include the blues, which was viewed as a common form practiced by unsophisticates. Once she began performing--solo and with bar bands--she gained a foothold in the worlds of folk and R&B, becoming enamored with the earthy sounds of blues-drenched soul. When she moved to New York in 1982, she fell in with the M-Base crowd, placing herself within a burgeoning movement that aimed at integrating elements of jazz, hip-hop, rap, funk, and other rhythm-driven musics. Her singing style, at that point, owed much to Carter and Lincoln.

By the time she recorded the critically acclaimed "Blue Skies," released on Polydor in 1988, she was exhibiting increased confidence and maturity. Her treatment of jazz standards--in fact, her decision to do an album of jazz standards--convinced many that she was on the same regal path paved by jazz's divas before her.

That's why "Blue Light," with its not-quite-jazz aesthetic, surprised her supporters and stands to attract an entirely new following. According to label insiders, 40,000 copies have been shipped domestically, with an ultimate figure expected to exceed 100,000. SoundScan reports that 14,000 units had been sold as of Jan. 16. A video for "Tupelo Honey," newly added at BET and a candidate for VH-1 play, should provide a considerable boost.

"It's been a hard record to keep on our shelves," reports Bert Caldwell, jazz buyer for Tower's newest New York store. "We set it up in our listening stations near the racks. People listen to it, they like it."

Radio programmers obviously feel the same way. A random survey of 80 jazz stations across the country reveals that more than half have the record in heavy or medium rotation. "We've got it heavy," says Bob Parlocha, program and music director for San Francisco's KJAZ. "That's six plays per week and up. The older cats seem to like !the track 'You Don't Know What Love Is,' the younger ones the Robert Johnson's tunes, 'Hellhound' and 'Come On In My Kitchen.'" With this kind of cross-generational appeal, the record seems ripe for a marketing push. The woman once viewed as jazz's next torch-bearing traditionalist, albeit one with a pronounced hip in her hop, might yet become a darling of the pop set. "We're going to break this thing into the pop market," says Lundvall. "Now's the time for Capitol to take over, even beyond our efforts at Blue Note. In Europe, it's become a top priority for us. I expect it to kick in there."

For Wilson, "Blue Light" has kicked in where it matters most. "Everything unfolds," she says. "That's what I learned from this record. The process of making it was really the focus, to allow things to happen, to submit to the natural flow of human events. I learned a lot about that. That's what I'm holding on to, that's what I'm taking with me." She begins work on her next album in the spring.

Source: Billboard, Feb 12, 1994 v106 n7 p1(2).
Author: Jeff Levenson
COPYRIGHT BPI Communications 1994