Cassandra Wilson

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Cassandra Wilson at the Bluesfest in Ottawa (2008)

Cassandra Wilson (born December 4, 1955 in Jackson , Mississippi ) is an American jazz singer .

Wilson's repertoire includes jazz and blues , but also pop and rock songs. Her alto voice is described as bluesy and spirited and her style of music ranges from swing to funk to bossa nova . She is a two-time Grammy Award winner.

life and work

At the age of nine she took piano lessons and also learned to play the guitar, and at the age of 12 she wrote her first songs. After successfully studying communication science, during which she performed as a singer from the mid-1970s, she first found work in New Orleans . In 1982 she moved to New York and joined the music collective M-Base around Steve Coleman . Wilson found - like Coleman, Greg Osby and Jean-Paul Bourelly - in the Munich producer Stefan Winter someone who released their first recordings on his label JMT , which he had just founded . In 1986 it took part with AACM co- founder Henry Threadgill and his trio Air New Air No. 1 on. She found her own style and a broader public response with her third album Blue Skies (1988), a purely standard album, which she recorded accompanied only by a piano trio. Their son was born in the late 1980s.

Her breakthrough came in 1993 when she moved from JMT to Blue Note Records and produced the album Blue Light 'Til Dawn , to which Wilson invited her then neighbor Craig Street to produce for the first time. Her fondness for Delta Blues ( Robert Johnson ), mid-70s soul ( Ann Peebles ' “ I Can't Stand the Rain ”, “Children of the Night” by Stylistics ) and songs by Van Morrison and Joni Mitchell , the unusual and sparse instrumentation with mainly acoustic guitars (including slide and steel guitars ) and percussion , the arrangements by Brandon Ross and the intimate, warm sound of the production, they together created a groundbreaking milestone for their respective careers.

In 1994 she worked with trumpeter Wynton Marsalis on his Pulitzer Prize (for music, 1997) album Blood on the Fields . For New Moon Daughter , the first Grammy followed in 1997 for "Best Jazz Vocal Performance", and in 2009 she won the Grammy for "Best Jazz Vocal Album" with the album Loverly .

In 2012 she left Blue Note and published Another Country with the independent Ojah media group based in her hometown of Jackson, Mississippi , whose venue Yellow Scarf she also designed.

While Wilson was still stylistically oriented towards the M-Base style in her JMT time, her repertoire opened up in the direction of blues, pop and rock when she switched to Blue Note. In addition to well-known jazz and blues tracks and her own compositions, she interpreted rock and pop tracks such as “The Weight” by The Band , Sting's “Fragile” or Cyndi Lauper's “ Time After Time ”. She dedicated the album Traveling Miles (1999) to Miles Davis , who died in 1991 ; for the tracks “Run the VooDoo Down”, “Seven Steps (to Heaven)”, “VooDoo Reprise” and “Sky & Sea (Blue in Green)” she provided Davis' compositions with a text and reinterpreted them. She was accompanied during these recordings and a. by Pat Metheny , Dave Holland , Terri Lyne Carrington , Steve Coleman and India.Arie .

Cassandra Wilson is married to actor Isaac de Bankolé .

Discography

Studio albums

year title Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
DE DE AT AT CH CH UK UK US US
1993 Blue Light 'til Dawn DE95 (3 weeks)
DE 		- - - -
First published: November 1993
1996 New Moon Daughter DE55
gold
gold

(9 weeks)DE 		AT47 (2 weeks)
AT 		- - US141 (5 weeks)
US
First publication: March 1996
German Jazz Award
1999 Traveling Miles DE38
gold
gold

(12 weeks)DE 		AT38 (4 weeks)
AT 		- - US158 (5 weeks)
US
First published: March 1999
German Jazz Award
2002 Belly Of The Sun DE36 (6 weeks)
DE 		AT21 (7 weeks)
AT 		CH93 (1 week)
CH 		- US155 (3 weeks)
US
First published: March 2002
2003 Glamorous DE74 (2 weeks)
DE 		- - - -
First published: October 2003
2006 Thunderbird - - - - US184 (1 week)
US
First published: April 2006
2008 Loverly DE82 (2 weeks)
DE 		- - - -
First published: June 2008
2012 Another country DE64 (1 week)
DE 		- - - -
First published: June 2012
2015 Coming forth by day DE56 (2 weeks)
DE 		- CH96 (1 week)
CH 		- US179 (1 week)
US
First published: April 2015

more publishments

  • 1986: Point of View
  • 1987: Days Aweigh
  • 1998: Blue Skies
  • 1990: Jumpworld
  • 1991: She Who Weeps
  • 1991: Live
  • 1992: After the Beginning Again
  • 1992: Dance to the Drums Again
  • 1996: Songbook
  • 1997: Rendezvous
  • 2002: Sings Standards
  • 2004: Love Phases Dimensions
  • 2009: Closer to You: The Pop Side
  • 2010: Silver Pony
  • 2014: Moonglow

Singles

year Title
album 		Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
DE DE AT AT CH CH UK UK US US
1994 I Can't Stand the Rain
Blue Light 'til Dawn 		- - - UK91 (1 week)
UK 		-
First published: April 1994

Web links

Commons : Cassandra Wilson  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from June 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Henry Threadgill biography on All About Jazz ; sighted June 30, 2012  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.allaboutjazz.com
  2. ↑ http://www.allmusic.com/album/blue-skies-mw0000652532
  3. ↑ Laura Jamison: One Woman Takes on the Music of Miles. New York Times, November 30, 1997, accessed December 13, 2015 .
  4. ↑ mixonline.com/mag/audio_craig_street_studio/ca conversation with Craig Street (English); sighted June 30, 2012
  5. ↑ Andreas Felber: Cassandra Wilson - In the belly of America. (No longer available online.) Concerto, April 3, 2002, archived from the original on December 22, 2015 ; accessed on December 13, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.concerto.at
  6. ↑ Album Reviews ( Memento from June 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Review by John Milward in Rolling Stone (English); sighted June 30, 2012
  7. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from May 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ojahmediagroup.drupalgardens.com
  8. ↑ a b Chart sources: DE AT CH UK US
  9. ^ Gold / platinum database of the Federal Association of the Music Industry, accessed on June 23, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Wilson, Cassandra
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz singer
DATE OF BIRTH 4th December 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Jackson , Mississippi, USA