In the latest of our series where musicians write about their inspirations and idols, Alison Crockett (*) writes about Cassandra Wilson
When I discovered Cassandra Wilson, it was after growing up listening to Jazz singers like Nancy Wilson, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. In the early 90s, I had just started to branch out and hear people that were not “mainstream” Jazz vocalists. As a musician, I was looking for harmonies, rhythms and melodies that created a vibe, and weren’t complicated for complications sake. Cassandra exhibited that quiet loud joy/pain that I was looking for. She takes standards and molds them into pure expressions of herself, using music as the canvas. Listening to Cassandra as a musician, I see all the complex harmonies, meters, and structures that she uses. But the most amazing thing is that as a listener you don’t really see just how complicated what she’s doing is because it’s not about all the ‘music, shmoosic’ stuff. It’s about feeling, emoting and storytelling, using all the tools that music offers. These tracks embody those traits for me and have been my musical companions for many years.
1. “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” from Blue Skies
This record, Blue Skies, was the first time I had ever heard Cassandra Wilson. She had a similar voice to mine in that it was low and full. I was starting to listen to Betty Carter when I first heard this song. I thought about how she phrased kinda like Betty a bit, took the spongy qualities of Sarah Vaughan and just talked and pounded and swerved her way through the song with mature confidence. The song is in three. I absolutely love any kind of waltz or three feel. Then by putting the first two phrases in 6/8 + 8/8 just made me feel all oogie inside. The whole song feels like you are floating over a sea of joy. It’s modern and traditional all at the same time. It blew me away and I performed and still perform this song very similarly to this to this day when asked. This song in particular gave me the confidence to put my own stink on any music I chose from then on.
2. “You Move Me” from the Love Jones Soundtrack
I remember getting this soundtrack after watching the movie “Love Jones”, which was an anthemic movie for young Black American adults coming through the Neo-Soul movement of the 90s. The soundtrack included all of my musical loves, from traditional Jazz to Soul inspired Hip Hop. Cassandra Wilson’s organic style fits in as she removed herself and her singing away from the traditional Jazz beautiful singer model. This song is soooo sexy. Mixed with John Coltrane’s “In a Sentimental Mood”, Nia Long and Laurenz Tate negotiated their modern love story that I kinda live as a single woman today. The lyrics, “I can hardly breathe for the trembling in my thighs…. You move me…” My hips sway and my body undulates with her voice on this track. Sensuality is oozing out of every pour with that signature bassline and of course an odd timed measure of 4/4 plus 6/4 that makes my back arch, and the rain like guitar and piano chords and light percussion…I can listen to this forever.
3. Days Aweigh
Here’s the song that truly made me see Cassandra Wilson as a visionary sound creator. It’s not just her voice that I became attracted to but like Bjork, she changes instruments and sound palettes from what Jazz singers mostly use and becomes this Avante Garde yet traditional singer. It feels, to me, as if Pat Metheny, Prince, Sun Ra, and Charles Mingus had a baby with Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone and Betty Carter.
4. The Last Train to Clarksville
Cassandra decided to take the Blues and Rock ‘N Roll back from the British invasion and re-blackify it with a second-line beat and her signature odd metered intro. This whole record, New Moon Daughter, continues to change the jazz singer’s relationship with just a piano, bass and drums and puts it into Blues and roots like instruments that fit with her sultry, quietly aggressive sound. She doesn’t really change the melody that much so the song is easily recognizable but the way she improvises the rhythm of the melody makes me see the words in a whole new light. I learned a lot from listening to where she placed the melody and what that does to the emotion of the words. She juxtaposes joy and deep thought that normally would feel like a contradiction, but just feels normal here.
5. Come on in My Kitchen
This song is how I learned about Robert Johnson and my actual first exposure to Country Blues. I knew the Blues was a part of Jazz but I really didn’t understand it until this track. Cassandra became a star outside of the Jazz bubble because of this record, Blue Light Til Dawn. It allowed people who didn’t listen to Jazz or Blues access to the power of these music forms. The beauty of this track is its incredible groove that she rides with her voice so effectively. She doesn’t use a lot of notes but just uses her voice to slide and swoop around to tell the story. She’s just talking like the Blues women before her. This is the way of singing a lot of young jazz singers don’t attempt to have access to. It’s gritty, sexy, earthy with a Bohemian glamor that I love.
6. “Voodoo Reprise” w/Anjelique Kidjo
This song is like the sister’s reunion in the movie “The Color Purple” when at the end when Celie and her sister, who had moved to Africa and took care of her children, embraced. Kidjo is one of my favorite singers and she adds a completely different rhythmic feel to the funky song. Them singing together is like hearing southern American pork chops and gravy on the same plate as African okra soup; related by traditions that diverged centuries ago. Cassandra has these triplet bluesy smooth moany sounds and Anjelique is crisply singing syncopated 8th notes. My favorite part is when they sing in major 2nds in Angelique’s language. It’s a sweet dissonant harmony that symbolizes to me the connection Africans(especially those from Nigeria, Ghana, and Benin) to African Americans, their sold and stolen progeny.
7. All of Me
I’ve sung this song many times and just sang it on my last record, Echoes of an Era Redux: My Father’s Record Collection Vol.1. But this version completely embraces the actual meaning of the lyrics and melody. This is what Cassandra excels at: giving you this strange thing that you never knew you wanted. Just by making it in smooth ethereal funky minor rather than the normal swingy bouncy major, the lyric’s meanings actually make so much more sense. Her dark smokey voice and relaxed phrasing mixed with the mournful strings turns the whole thing around for me.
8. A Little Warm Death
Cassandra really lets go in this live performance of “A Little Warm Death”. She’s one of those singers where the scatting doesn’t feel like she sat in a classroom to learn all the scales and chord relationships and she exhibits the true reason that singers scat: because it feels hella good and it’s like speaking in tongues as the spirit moves through you. It’s not sterile or “perfect” but it’s perfectly joyful using vocal sounds to create a whole new story. You can’t always catch this in the studio. It’s like she’s in church because the outro is longer than the song itself. And she’s just riding the Brazilian funk groove talking about having someone coming and having a “little warm death” WITH her…I’m fanning myself while drinking tea to see who’s the man who’s going to take her up on her offer.
9. “Warm Spot” from Jumpworld
Here’s the whole M-base crew in the album Jumpworld. The whole thing to me feels like New York City with an extension of the Weather Report and Jaco Pastorius like sounds. Cassandra isn’t the vocalist on her record, she is another member of the band; another horn who says words. The “My way, my way, my way…” gets me everytime with her yodeling. She rides the quick, sparkling drum patterns like butter over top of crispy toast. She never needs a major chordal instrument to give her voice a bed to lay on. She’s just making unique and joyful sounds just like everyone else.
10. Right Here Right Now/Time After Time
I always love these joyful masses of major chords with African/Brazilian types of beats underneath. Cassandra uses the darkness of her voice to really tell a story of what is happening. But when she moves into “Time After Time”, it really makes me remember how she sang “Round Midnight” on a video I saw when she was really young. She takes a melody and strips it down to its barest essence. It’s still there and you the listener can hear it clearly, but, like Miles Davis, she simplifies and manipulates it so you can really hear the feelings she’s singing about using her deep dark call as she sings “if you falllllll, I will catch you…” Then she starts scatting like water running over smokey pebbles… never forced. Just melodic and beautiful.
(*) Alison Crockett is a Washington DC-native vocalist, composer, and educator who has travelled through many different musical styles like Neo Soul, Hip Hop, Drum N Bass, House Music, and R&B but, as she says, “has always landed in Jazz.” Her album “Echoes of an Era Redux: My Fathers Record Collection Vol. 1” is released in Europe this month.
One Response
Very nice. I’ve been a fan of Cassandra Wilson for a long time myself.