DANIEL ZWERDLING, Host: OK, OK, let's- let's boogie. That's incredible. Cassandra Wilson, you are hot, or at least as hot as a jazz- you're fanning yourself- as hot as a jazz singer can be these days. In the last few months- let me read a few of your reviews - The New York Times has held you as the most important singer to come along in jazz in the last 10 years. Time magazine has said you're the most accomplished jazz vocalist of your generation. People magazine called you pure seduction.

CASSANDRA WILSON, Jazz Vocalist: Wow.

ZWERDLING: So, since you and your fellow musicians have been kind enough to join us here in our performance studio, 4A, would you please start off by seducing us and our listeners with a song?

Ms. WILSON: We'd be more than happy to. [sings]

ZWERDLING: Oh. I wish our listeners could see the way you sing. Your eyes are closed. A lot of the time it looks like you're playing instruments in the air - base viol sometimes, drums other times. You're- sometimes you're massaging your chest.

Ms. WILSON: [laughs] I do that a lot. I- you know, I don't know why. It feels good. It feels good, especially to touch this part of my body. It's like one of my favorite parts of my body.

ZWERDLING: Well, it's sort of right where your voice comes from, almost, and I read- a critic described your voice as `simultaneously dry and unearthly with honey and a cinnamon bark pungency.' I think he got that from a wine label. [laughs] What do you hear when you sing? How do you describe your voice?

Ms. WILSON: I don't really describe it. I hear lots of things. You know, I hear lots of energies that come in and out of it and I look at that way. It's like spiritual energeries that move in and out of the voice. I don't know where they come from.

ZWERDLING: Well, I've done a little bit of homework on you. I read that you grew up in the '60s, right? Your father was a jazz musician. Your mother was a school teacher. She listened more to Motown, rhythm and blues. You became somewhat of a folkie, singing along with your guitar. Years later, you got into very- more funky, sort of electrical jazz rock. Anyway, what happened to make you sitting here today, singing such mellow, sparse- I would almost call this pure jazz. I get visions, when you sing, of a nightclub in the '50s with a spotlight on you on a stool on the stage, cutting through all the cigarette smoke.

Ms. WILSON: Well, the music reflects your life. It should, I think. You know, I've always enjoyed space in music, I just haven't really had access to it. [laughs] Oddly enough, you know.

ZWERDLING: Now wait. Now this is interesting. You say you've always enjoyed space in music and your music does have a lot of- well certainly not silences, but there's a lot of space between your notes. It's- the instruments are very sparse.

Ms. WILSON: Yeah. You know, I don't know about anybody else, but I just really got- got kind of fed up with synthesizers and electronics, and you know, so much manipulation of instruments that are- you know, that are so far removed from the human touch.

ZWERDLING: But certainly, some- hasn't some record executive come to you and said, `Hey Cassandra, baby, I love you. Get out of here. But listen, you know, just put a little more synthesizers, little more, you know, hey, we'll really sell.'

Ms. WILSON: [laughs]

ZWERDLING: No really, somebody must have said that to you.

Ms. WILSON: Many times. I mean, you know, it's-

ZWERDLING: And you don't want to do it, because-

Ms. WILSON: No, no. I've never wanted to do it, so why should I change now at this point?

ZWERDLING: Well, I know that you all have a concert later tonight. You've been on the road. Charlie the violinist is yawning. [laughs] Yes you are. I saw that. But could you give us one more song before- before we started- I like that. Well, I was sort of- because I was going to say that before we started this interview, I heard you warming up or singing and you had these amazing low notes. Could you sing something with some of those amazing low notes?

Ms. WILSON: Let's see, do we have an amazing low note song?

ZWERDLING: Even if it's a work in progress, it would be great to hear a bit of it, okay.

Ms. WILSON: Now this is actually a work in progress, because I did this on the album with three- three with overdubs, you know, voices. So, we're trying to figure out how to translate it into the band context. [sings]

ZWERDLING: Sounds pretty good to me right there.

Ms. WILSON: Thank you for having us.

ZWERDLING: And, with Cassandra Wilson today are-

Ms. WILSON: Charlie Burnham [sp] on violin, Lance Carter on drums, and Brandon Ross on guitar.

ZWERDLING: And Cassandra Wilson's most recent CD is-

Ms. WILSON: Blue Light 'Till Dawn. [music]

ZWERDLING: And, for this evening, that's All Things Considered. [production credits given]

ZWERDLING: And I'm Daniel Zwerdling. Good evening, for All Things Considered.

[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it has not been proofread against audiotape and cannot, for that reason, be guaranteed as to the accuracy of speakers' words or spelling.]

Source :07/10/94 NPR All Things Considered
(c) Copyright 1994 National Public Radio. All rights reserved.