JazzFest – Cassandra Wilson

It was 30 years ago, back in 1995, that jazz singer Cassandra Wilson began recording New Moon Daughter. That impactful offering, which artfully blended jazz and Americana, would have a profound effect on Wilson’s career, catapulting her to a new echelon of fame in the jazz world and earning her a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance. Suddenly, with the release of her second Blue Note album with producer Craig Street (following 1993’s Blue Light ’til Dawn), Wilson was being hailed as the new empress of jazz singers, mentioned in the same breath as such iconic vocalists as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Betty Carter. In a rave review, DownBeat declared New Moon Daughter an instant classic and awarded it five stars. The reviewer praised Wilson’s “warmly inviting and authentic voice,” and her “genius” in reinterpreting the Great American Songbook. Intimate, sensuous and swinging, New Moon Daughter also finds Wilson wrapping her smoky, honey-toned voice around jazz, blues and pop classics, including Son House’s mournful “Death Letter,” Hoagy Carmichael’s classic “Skylark” and a tender, heartbreaking cover of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” And they are all delivered with Wilson’s signature all-knowing sense of cool allure. This special performance celebrates the 30th anniversary of New Moon Daughter, and features four of the musicians who joined Cassandra on the album: local guitar legend Kevin Breit; guitarist Brandon Ross; bassist Lonnie Plaxico; and percussionist Jeffrey Haynes; along with Gregoire Maret, harmonica and Chris Eddleton, drums.