Cassandra Wilson - Southern Comfort

In recent years, with a generally lukewarm reaction to the albums Glamoured and Thunderbird, a changing cast of producers and ever fluid fashions in jazz vocals, with a new generation of singers influenced by her style or developing their own paths, Wilson’s once pre-eminent role as a progressive jazz singer has dipped. However, with her new album Loverly, complete with its ingenious Broadway covers and careful reinvention of antique jazz standards, Wilson is set for a new phase in her career. Kevin Le Gendre talks to the singer about her new direction.

Albums are made for many reasons. There is the desire to document a band, an imperative to shift units, a contractual obligation to fulfil, and occasionally the grander notion of “concept” to realise. Certain projects, however, begin with nothing more than a suggestion, an idea that strikes a chord. “Bruce Lundvall actually suggested that I do a standards album,” says Cassandra Wilson about her latest offering Loverly that indeed focuses on American songbook staples. “I thought it was a great idea because it’s been a while since I’ve done something from the standards repertoire and it felt like the right thing to do.”

But Lundvall isn’t just any non-league player with a passing opinion. The head of Blue Note records remains a key figure in the contemporary jazz industry for his combination of astute marketplace savvy and vision to champion artists without obvious commercial appeal. His suggestion that Wilson tackle standards, two decades after she did Blue Skies, a set of Broadway songs cut with a piano trio, carried weight.

Loverly, featuring longstanding Wilson collaborators, drummer Herlin Riley, bassist Lonnie Plaxico and guitarist Marvin Sewell as well as new additions, pianist Jason Moran and percussionist Lekan Babalola, finds Wilson lending her sinuous yet commanding tone to songs that have been performed countless times by vocalists great and not so great; songs that measure a musician’s imagination and strength of character. Highlights from Loverly, ‘St. James Infirmary’, ‘Caravan’, ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most’, ‘Lover Come Back To Me’, ‘A Sleepin’ Bee’ and ‘Black Orpheus’ span a good century, the first piece dating from the early-1900s. They also represent a line of evolution in jazz, a flowering of the music from the elemental syncopation of ragtime to a sweeping harmonic sophistication and thus present inspiration and challenge to any artist.

“I always felt that I would draw from that catalogue when the time was right,” Wilson comments, “and these are just great songs; I generally steer clear of standards unless I feel I can really do them and unless I really feel that they can be interpreted well. I guess the measure of that is where I am emotionally, whether or not I feel that I’m able to bear those experiences as they are expressed in the lyrics of the piece.”

This is an extract from Jazzwise Issue #120 to read the full feature and receive a Free CD Subscribe Here