"The whole album is really 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 a fullness and death - the completion.

On New Moon Daughter, Wilson's five original compositions show a leap in her development as a songwriter and lyricist that adds up to her growing reputation as "the most accomplished jazz vocalist of her generation" (Time magazine). As on 1993's Blue Light `till Dawn, she also examines her musical roots while putting her own stamp on an eclectic 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 highly acclaimed Blue Note debut, has sold in excess of 250,000 copies worldwide and led to her recognition as "Female Singer of the Year" in 1994 and 1995's Down Beat Reader's Polls.

In the January 1995 editor John Ephland wrote, "Nit since Billie Holiday has a jazz singer criss-crossed the boundaries between jazz and pop with such reverence and authenticity." But, perhaps, producer Craig Street put it best in evaluating Wilson's talent: "It doesn't matter what Cassandra does, it all comes out sounding like Cassandra, and it all comes out sounding like jazz. The nature of jazz to me is that it doesn't have any rules...it's about going out on a limb. And to her credit, especially being someone who was immersed in jazz, she was willing to push to some places on this record that other people probably wouldn't push to."

Accompanied by guitarist 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. She renders Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" as an evocative tone poem and underscores themes of alienation, loss and longing running through Hoagy Carmichael's "Skylark," Son House's "Death Letter," and the Monkees' "Last Train to Clarksville," the Billie Holiday classic, "Strange Fruit," and her own stirring originals "Solomon Sang," "A Little Warm Death" and "Until." Her dramatic use of understatement enhances the lyrical point of view on this striking material, which is 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., into a musical family (her father was guitarist and bassist Herman Fowlkes), Wilson studied piano from the age of nine and began writing her own songs on guitar at age 12. By age 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, she moved to New Orleans and began a career in broadcasting. "I had 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. "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 and Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and 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 and trcaes of it, but it cergtinly wasn't as deep and dark as it is now."

Her naturally smoky, sultry voice has now graced nice 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 after 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, "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."

Regarding her working relationship with producer Crag Street, who fashioned the playing field of Blue Light `til Dawn and encouraged her to push the envelope on New Moon Daughter. Wilson says, "We both love to smash the status quo. That's what brought us together, this shared interest in pushing the music .. doing crazy things with the music - expanding. He's very adventurous, and so am I. He's got some very unusual ideas about instrumentation which are right up my alley. I'm always into moving into the unknown. So we share that passion for creating different stuff. It's an ongoing process - a stream of consciousness, intuitive thing. He throws some ideas out there, and I get inside of them."

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 profoundly passionate vocalist stylists on the scene today. As Craig Street noted, "She's got a way of getting inside of harmony and melody that's really interesting, and I think people are really moved by it. People wanna hear her voice."

Publication Name: LOS ANGELES SENTINEL V.62; N.13, 06-27-96, p. B3