"The whole album really is about cycles," says singer-songwriter Cassandra Wilson of "New Moon Daughter," her second recording for Blue Note.
"It's about the cycle of relationships, how they're into an ebb and flow, how it's up and down with the phases of the moon...the different energies that those phases represent and how the culmination of that is fullness and death -the completion."
On "New Moon Daughter," Wilson's five originals show growth in her development as a songwriter and lyricist.
As on 1993's "Blue Light `til Dawn," she also examines her musical roots while putting her own stamp on an electric mix of pop, folk, country and blues tunes by Hank Williams, Neil Young, Hoagy Carmichael, U2, Billie Holiday, Son House and the Monkees. "Blue Light `til Dawn," Wilson's Blue Note debut, has sold more than 250,000 copies worldwide and led to her recognition as "Female Singer of the Year" in 1994 and 1995's Down Beat Readers Poll.
In the January 1995 issue of Down Beat, editor John Ephiand wrote: "Not since Billie Holiday has a jazz singer criss-crossed the boundaries between jazz and pop with such reverence and authenticity.
Accompanied by guitarists Brandon Ross and Kevin Breit, bassist Lonnie Plaxico, percussionist Cyro Baptista and drummer Dougie Bowne, Wilson casts a spell on sparsely arranged pieces that highlight her haunting contralto voice, relaxed phrasing and passionate delivery. ALIENATION AND LOSS
She renders Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" as an evocative tone poem. She underscores themes of alienation, loss and longing running through Hoagy Carmichael's "Skylark," Son House's "Death Letter," The Monkees' "Last Train to Clarksville," Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" and her own originals, "Solomon Sang," "A Little Warm Death" and "Until."
Wilson's dramatic use of understatement enhances the lyrical point of view, heightened by special guest appearances from Chris Whitley on resophonic guitar, Graham Haynes on coronet, Charlie Burnham on violin and Tony Cedras on accordion.
Born in Jackson, Miss., to a musical family (her father was guitarist and bassist Herman Fowlkes), Wilson studied piano from the age of 9 and began writing her own songs on guitar at age 12. By 19, she started performing folk material around Mississippi and Arkansas and gradually became immersed in jazz while studying with Alvin Fielder and singing with the Black Arts Music Society in Jackson.
By 1981, Wilson relocated to New Orleans and began a career broadcasting.
"I had just gotten my degree in mass communications from Jackson State University and was working as the assistant public affairs director of a local television station in New Orleans," she recalls.
"At that point, I just assumed that television would be the thing that I would do as a career. But still, the music was the most important thing for me."
Wilson pursued her musical interests on the side and eventually met New Orleans saxophonist Earl Turbinton, who became an important mentor for her. TRANSITION FROM FOLK
"I was making a transition from a folk period, where Joni Mitchell was all I was really interested in, and going from that into jazz. Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Betty Carter. And my voice at that point was still very high. It didn't have any of the coloration that I have now. It might have had traces of it, but it certainly wasn't as deep and dark as it is now."
That naturally smoky, sultry voice has now graced nine albums as a leader and another dozen as a featured vocalist with Steve Coleman and Five Elements, the M-Base Collective, New Air and Bob Belden's Manhattan Rhythm Club.
After her `70s folk phase and her investigation of jazz following a move to New York City in the `80s, Wilson has come full circle back to the folk, pop and blues music that initially stirred her soul. And she's tackling this material in the spirit of a true jazz singer.
"It's been very cyclical, you know," she says.
"Of course, the first thing I listened to as a kid was jazz, so it made sense after the folk music to come back to jazz. And now it makes just as much sense for me to be singing tunes by Joni Mitchell, Robert Johnson, Hank Williams and the Monkees.
Recorded in the raw and open environment of the Barn in Bearsville, N.Y., "New Moon Daughter" is the next revealing look at one of the most passionate vocal stylists on the scene today.
Publication Name: PORTLAND SKANNER
Publication Date: 03-13-96
