{"id":3256,"date":"2011-08-09T12:16:46","date_gmt":"2011-08-09T19:16:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=3256"},"modified":"2011-08-09T12:16:46","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T19:16:46","slug":"cassandra-wilson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/08\/cassandra-wilson\/","title":{"rendered":"CASSANDRA WILSON"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

CASSANDRA WILSON<\/h1>\n

She listens and lets the songs speak to
\nher\u2014then she makes them her own<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Cassandra Wilson has a sixth sense when it comes to finding songs. \u201cThey will tell me if they are for me,\u201d she says. \u201cA song tells me that it belongs to me. It has to resonate and have some connection to who I am, who I\u2019ve grown up to be, who I was and will be and who I want to be.\u201d The veteran singer\u2019s latest album, Silver Pony<\/em>, includes several such songs, coming from sources as disparate as Stevie Wonder, Brazilian composer Luiz Bonf\u00e1 and blues great Charley Patton\u2014as well as Wilson\u2019s own compositions.<\/p>\n

Wilson and co-producer John Fischbach elected to use recordings from both the studio and the stage for Silver Pony<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s taking two different creative circumstances and trying to blend them together,\u201d she says. \u201cThe stage is really dynamic and it has so many elements in it that you don\u2019t have in studio recordings. But the studio recordings are great because they allow you to be very introspective. So I thought it would be interesting to weld those two spaces together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson was exposed to a variety of genres growing up in Jackson, Miss., including classical music, jazz, R&B, blues and country. (Silver Pony<\/em> kicks off with the Sigmund Romberg\/Oscar Hammerstein II pop standard \u201cLover, Come Back to Me,\u201d a tune she learned from her mother.) While she is typically categorized as a jazz singer, Wilson finds such labels limiting. \u201cYou hear all kinds of music, so why do you have to stay inside the confines of one type?\u201d she says. \u201cI like to say that jazz is a discipline. It\u2019s a way of life. It\u2019s something that you grow into. It\u2019s not just confined to the music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the beginning of her recording career in the mid-\u201980s, Wilson has made a point of exploring numerous avenues, from adventurous funk to standards. The 2009 compilation Closer to You: The Pop Side<\/em> rounded up her various covers of rock tunes, including songs by the Monkees, Neil Young and U2, while 1999\u2019s Traveling Miles<\/em> was a tribute to Miles Davis. Wilson is satisfied to perform any song that calls out to her. \u201cIt\u2019s really great when, as an artist, you can see the development of a piece and see it move from one place to the next, after the musicians have had time to really absorb the song,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s about chemistry. The music has to happen in the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Jeff Tamarkin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CASSANDRA WILSON She listens and lets the songs speak to her\u2014then she makes them her own Cassandra Wilson has a sixth sense when it comes to finding songs. \u201cThey will tell me if they are for me,\u201d she says. \u201cA song tells me that it belongs to me. It has to resonate and have some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[2340,1334,10156],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3256"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3258,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3256\/revisions\/3258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}