Cassandra Wilson Sings One Last Song for Lady Day

Cassandra Wilsonis arguably the most important jazz singer of her generation — Time magazine called her “America’s Best Singer.” But Wilson’s records are anything but traditional jazz. When she signed with Blue Note Records in 1993 and released Blue Light ’til Dawn, it included covers of Joni Mitchell’s “Black Crow” and Van Morrison’s “Tupelo Honey.” “My philosophy was, if you’re going to be a jazz musician you got to use the material that is happening in your time,” she tells Kurt Andersen. “It doesn’t make sense to continue to just regurgitate the music from a certain era.”

(Courtesy of Sony Legacy )

Wilson’s New Moon Daughter(1996) brought her popular acclaim and won her a Grammy. Again, she steered clear of jazz standards and instead, brought her own interpretations of everything from U2’s “Love is Blindness” to The Monkees’ “The Last Train to Clarksville.” Not surprisingly, Wilson’s unconventional choices irked those she calls “the jazz police” — that was the reaction she was going for. “That’s my personality,” she says. “I like to just knock that chip off your shoulder.” At the same time, though, she has worked with jazz purist Wynton Marsalis and considers him a good friend. “When I see him we tease each other,” she tells Kurt. “Everybody serves a purpose in this music. We all can’t be Wynton Marsalis.”

It seems only fitting that Wilson’s new album, Coming Forth by Day, is a tribute to the great female jazz and blues singer of last century, Billie Holiday, on the centennial of her birth. “You know I’m in that lineage of singers,” Wilson says. “Abbey Lincoln was a great mentor for me and Billie Holiday was her mentor.”

Coming Forth by Day ends with a song Wilson wrote herself for Holiday’s dear friend and musical collaborator, the saxophonist Lester Young. “Last Song for Lester” was inspired by the story of Young’s funeral. As Wilson tells it, Holiday rushed back from a European tour to attend Young’s funeral in hopes of singing for her dear friend, but was not allowed. “So this song was written for her to be able to do that.”

Bonus Track: “You Go to My Head”