Hailed as hot, cool, and a complete original, sultry jazz singer Cassandra Wilson is now starting a two-month tour in Blood on the Fields, a musical epic about slavery composed by Wynton Marsalis (a recording is due out in March). Her latest CD is the Grammy-nominated New Moon Daughter (Blue Note, $16).

What's the message of Blood on the Fields?

We're a people who've been separated. Slavery created this intense alienation: not knowing where your children or parents were.

What's the music like?

It's a mixture--jazz, blues, a little bit of the classical thing--and the first gospel I've performed. The music is definitely difficult to sing.

You cover a Monkees song on New Moon Daughter. Why?

There's an urgency in the lyric for "Last Train to Clarksville" that I love: Catch me now because a couple of days from now I'll be gone. Relationships now are like that.
 

Full Text COPYRIGHT 1997 U.S. News and World Report Inc.
Source: U.S. News & World Report, Feb 3, 1997 v122 n4 p91(1).