R.I.P. Cassandra Wilson
- Bill Milkowski
- 7 hours ago
- 7 min read
The incredible singer with the sultry, honey-toned contralto had a rare gift for reaching into our souls
The news hit hard. The words fell like bricks as Amna Nawaz delivered them during the PBS News Hour on Sept. 2 : “Jazz singer and songwriter Cassandra Wilson has died.” The shocking news came just three months short of her 71st birthday on December 4. I’m still reeling, as are all of her many fans around the world.
I knew Cassandra a little bit. Less than some, more than most. She was gorgeous, charming, seductive, funny. And how she could sing! Like a Billie Holiday, Abbey Lincoln, Nina Simone or her biggest role model, Betty Carter, but with her own unique phrasing and highly intuitive process. I had the great pleasure of interviewing Cassandra a few times and got to know her well enough to joke with her at parties or backstage after gigs.
I did a Jazz Times cover story on Cassandra for the March 1996 issue of that magazine. This was back when I was living in New Orleans, a place where Cassandra had briefly lived herself after leaving her hometown of Jackson, Mississippi in 1991 to explore the Crescent City music scene. There she was taken under the wing of elders like Ellis Marsalis, Alvin Batiste and Earl Turbinton before moving north in 1992 to check out the New York City music scene from her nearby perch in East Orange, New Jersey.
Cassandra had come down to New Orleans the previous year to perform the national anthem at the inaugural Essence Music Festival on July 1, 1995. I attended that festival at the Superdome and distinctly remember her coming out barefoot to sing her a cappella version of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” And her version was stunning. The following day I conducted the interview for Jazz Times at her hotel room on Bourbon Street (see below). The Jazz Times spread was scheduled to coincide with the March 6, 1996 release of her second Blue Note album, New Moon Daughter, a sensational outing produced by Craig Street and featuring a remarkably rare mix of talent in dobro guitarist Chris Whitley, cornetist Butch Morris, violinist Charles Burnham, accordionist Tony Cedras, bassist Lonnie Plaxico, drummer Dougie Bowne and guitarists Kevin Breit and Brandon Ross.
A few months after that Cassandra Wilson interview in New Orleans, I was back in my old stomping grounds of New York City, this time producing a Pat Martino album for Blue Note Records. The brainchild of Blue Note head Bruce Lundvall, the idea was to pair Pat with a different young artist on each track of this tribute album. And he gave me and co-producer Matt Resnicoff pretty much free reign to come up with any worthy plectrists whom we thought might compliment Pat’s playing (we ended up picking Mike Stern, Kevin Eubanks, Charlie Hunter, Michael Hedges, Tuck Andress and Joe Satriani, along with Pat’s boyhood hero, Les Paul). Lundvall’s one contingent to his plan was that we include his star singer from the Blue Note roster on one track. Pat bristled at this suggestion, not really wanting to do a track with “a vocalist.” He actually confessed not knowing who Cassandra Wilson was and felt hesitant to do a track with her. As he put it, “What does this have to do with me? I didn’t come back from the dead to record with Cassandra fucking Wilson.”
Along with some gentle nudging from Lundvall, Matt and I were eventually successful in cajoling Pat into doing the Joni Mitchell tune “Both Sides Now,” which he had previously recorded in a stark solo setting on his groundbreaking 1974 album, Consciousness. And Cassandra had recorded Joni’s “Black Crow” on her own 1993 breakthrough album, Blue Light ‘til Dawn. The night before the recording session was to take place at Sorcerer Sound studio in SoHo, Pat and Cassandra met for the first time at Musegarden rehearsal studio in midtown Manhattan to go over Joni’s “Both Sides Now.” Trouble was, Pat had shedded the tune in the key of A while Cassandra, with her low, sultry voice, was naturally accustomed to doing it in the key of D, which does not fall too easily on the fretboard. Pat came up with a quick solution by tuning his guitar down one whole step from standard tuning (E-A-D-G-B-E) down to D tuning (D-G-C-F-A-D) to accomomodate Cassandra’s low range. Indeed, Pat stayed up most of the night trying to find his level of comfort in this new key. But it was a helluva lot easy than trying to completely relearn the fingering of the piece in standard tuning.
On the appointed day (June 23, 1996), we were all assembled at the studio by 10:30 a.m., ready to hit it at 11. Pat sat on a stool in the studio, nervously running through the tune while occasionally casting his dark Sicilian gaze at me, as if to say, “Well, where is she?” By 11:30, the studio phone rang. It was Cassandra. She had been delayed uptown in Harlem, where she lived. The limo we had sent for her apparently never arrived. I calmly asked her to jump in a cab and speed downtown to SoHo ASAP.
She arrived at Sorcerer Sound a little after noon, looking positively radiant in that special Cassandra Wilson way. I met her outside on Mercer Street as her cab pulled up, and the first thing she said to me was: “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” a reference to her manager Ed Garrard, a tough negotiator and notorious ball-buster who had put us through some pretzel permutations before a deal was finally struck and the date of the session secured.
Cassandra knew “Both Sides Now” intimately from her years as a coffeehouse folk singer in Mississippi before making her big splash. So I knew that she would deliver. After greeting Pat and Matt inside the studio, she apologized and stepped back outside for a brief smoke before going on mic. Anything to keep the artist happy and in her level of comfort.
Returning after quickly smoking two cigarettes, Cassandra stepped into the enclosed sound booth while Pat remained on his stool in the live room. With headphones on, Cassandra listened to Pat’s tender and beautifully articulated intro before entering. Her first words came in hushed tones, like a prayer:
Tears and fears and feeling proud To say ‘I love you’ right out loud Dreams and schemes and circus crowds I’ve looked at love that way.
It was sheer magic. Cassandra’s performance was so spine-tingling it caused goosebumps for everyone in the room. And her hovering, prolonged note on the word “moon” in the second chorus is positively inspired by The Muses. When I got the news of Cassandra’s passing the other day, I put this song on, and cried.
I first saw Cassandra perform on stage at the Brooklyn Academy of Music back on December 19, 1988. I recall she was very visibly pregnant at the time as she stood there with Steve Coleman’s group in a program called “M-Base Jams at BAM” as part of annual Next Wave Festival. I found her breathtaking. She just radiated on so many levels — musically, visually, soulfully.
That memorable concert was a coming out party, of sorts, for M-Base (an acronym for Macro Basic Array of Structure Extemporizations). The 12-piece that night included pianist Geri Allen, alto saxophonist Greg Osby, tenor saxophonist Gary Thomas, guitarist David Gilmore, trombonist Robin Eubanks, electric bassist Kevin Bruce Harris, drummers Marvin “Smitty” Smith and Tani Tabbal, percussionist Sadiq Bey and special guest bassists Dave Holland and Bob Hurst. By that point, Cassandra had already released three albums on the small German label JMT Records — 1986’s Point of View (produced by Coleman and featuring guitarist Jean-Paul Bourelly, bassist Lonnie Plaxico and drummer Mark Johnson), 1987’s Days Aweigh (again produced by Coleman and featuring guest soloists Olu Dara on cornet, Graham Haynes on trumpet and with Henry Threadgill doing arrangements on two tracks) and 1988’s superb standards album Blue Skies (featuring pianist Mulgrew Miller, bassist Plaxico and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington).
She followed with three other under-the-radar gems on JMT — 1989’s Jumpworld,1991’s She Who Weeps and 1992’s After the Beginning Again — before being signed by Blue Note Records and subsequently releasing 1993’s Blue Light ‘Til Dawn, which was a bona fide hit, selling over 250,000 copies. Under the guidance of producer Craig Street, who was intent on having Cassandra accruing more cross-genre appeal by interpreting more familiar pop material in her own inimitable fashion, Wilson quickly rose to a new level of fame in her career. And there was no looking back.
1996’s New Moon Daughter reached No. 1 on the Billboard magazine jazz album chart, sold over 650,000 copies earned Wilson her first Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance). The following year, she recorded and toured as a featured vocalist with Wynton Marsalis, performing his Pulitzer Prize-winning composition, Blood on the Fields. And in 1999 she delivered a heartfelt tribute to a major influence with Traveling Miles, her acclaimed 12th album as a leader and fourth for Blue Note.
Cassandra continued to synthesize blues, pop, folk, jazz, world music and country on subsequent albums like 2000’s Belly of the Sun (which included takes on Mississippi Fred McDowell’s “You Gotta Move,” Robbie Robertson’s “The Weight,” Jimmy Webb’s “Witchita Lineman” and Bob Dylan’s “Shelter from the Storm”) and 2003’s Glamoured(with Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay,” "Sting’s “Fragile,” Willie Nelson’s “Crazy,” Abbey Lincoln’s “Throw It Away” and Muddy Waters’ “Honey Bee”). Her Grammy-winning 2008 album Loverly was a return to standards in the company of pianist Jason Moran, guitarist Marvin Sewell, bassist Lonnie Plaxico and drummer Herlin Riley) while 2010’s Silver Pony (her last Blue Note recording) found her covering the Beatles’ “Blackbird,” Stevie Wonder’s “If It’s Magic” and Delta bluesman Charley Patton’s “Saddle Up My Pony.” Her final recording was another delightful take on jazz standards, Coming Forth by Day on the Sony/Legacy label.
Like the trailblazing Betty Carter, Cassandra Wilson wanted to be a member of the band and not just a singer who fronted a band. She was more about being interactive than performative. Credit Steve Coleman, who she first met in 1982, with helping her find her way. In their early conversations, Coleman stressed to Wilson the importance of finding her own voice. As he put it, “You’ll never accomplish anything in this music if you imitate people. Bird and Sarah Vaughan have already said what they’re going to say. You need to say what you’re supposed to say.” Coleman appreciated her intutive approach and encouraged her to push beyond just imitating Betty or Sarah or anyone.
Here is a Blindfold Test that my dear friend and college, the late Gene Santoro conducted with Cassandra Wilson for the Feb. 1989 issue of Downbeat, followed by my cover story on Cassandra Wilson for the March 1996 issue of Jazz Times :
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