The dark timbre of Cassandra Wilson's voice gives vivid personal meaning to the lyrics she sings. It's a gift that can be scary, as Billie Holiday once showed. Yet the one contemporary vocalist extending the tradition of the great jazz singers of the past, such as Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Betty Carter, has tended to distance herself from their legacy. 'We have to take what we can and learn from the masters, but by repeating what they do, we're not really doing justice to the tradition,' she says.
Whether she's singing songs dug up from heaven knows where or her own originals, this Mississippi native has reconceptualised the role of the jazz singer for the 21st century. 'You have to challenge yourself in order to become better. There should be some level of edginess and discomfort to an artist as they go about their work.'
She has certainly delivered on the enormous promise of 1982's New York solo live debut. You only have to listen to the 52-year-old's upcoming Loverly (Blue Note) to get a sense of that. Here her hard-won maturity has enabled her to claim as her own songs from the canon that are twice as old as she is, moving her closer to the singer she has always wanted to be - a singer of the past, the present and the future.
If you only buy one album ...
Loverly (Blue Note, 2007)
