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Cassandra Wilson (Photo by Hiroyuki Ito)
I see in the Times that Cassandra Wilson has died. She’s one of my favorite jazz singers. What a voice! Low and smoky. Gary Giddins, in his New Yorker review of her superb 2008 album Loverly said this:
Wilson has always thrived on rhythmic complexity, but her best work, including “Loverly,” balances it with melodic, harmonic, and verbal nuances that transform evergreens into personal deliberations, frequently underscored with an ironic eroticism.
Giddins identified three of her attributes as a singer: “the husky timbre, which favors her lower register; an affinity for melodic embellishments replete with sighs and moans; and a canny back-of-the-beat rhythmic attack.”
I’d add a fourth: interpretive genius. Her renditions of “Skylark,” “I’m Old Fashioned,” “Lover Come Back to Me,” “Last Train to Clarksville,” “Wichita Lineman,” “O Sole Mio,” “Black Orpheus,” to name just a few, are brilliant. Her version of Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” is magic. Once heard, never forgotten. She’s gone now – way too soon. Her albums will live on. She joins Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald as one of the greatest jazz singers of all time.
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