Singer Jose James’ recent tribute to Billie Holiday saw a fine singer and a hip jazz trio sprinkling personal magic on timeless songs with careful respect. Cassandra Wilson’s angle on Holiday is very different: a radical, big-production remake of the great vocalist’s music with the rhythm section from Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds giving the repertoire a thick-textured, abstract blues-rock feel, while a luxurious strings section embraces the ballads. Don’t Explain spices Wilson’s favourite slow-blues feel with old-school echo-chamber guitar and smoky tenor sax; You Go to My Head and The Way You Look Tonight are orchestrally stretched pop ballads on which Wilson merges surrender and confidence; and only the murderous message of Strange Fruit feels distracted by the countermelodies that crowd in on the singer’s brooding tones. Lady Day traditionalists may flinch, but Coming Forth By Day is a big gamble that, for the most part, pays off, and could be Wilson’s best album since Travelling Miles.
