Track Listing

1. Strange Fruit
2. Love Is Blindness
3. Solomon Sang
4. Death Letter
5. Skylark
6. Find Him
7. I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
8. Last Train to Clarksville
9. Until
10. Little Warm Death
11. Memphis
12. Harvest Moon

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13973 in Music
• Brand: Wilson
• Released on: 1996-03-05
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Amazon.com essential recording
Her luscious alto has the depth and texture of a great tenor saxophonist, but Cassandra Wilson's defining asset is a postmodern song sense that enables her to surf through Son House, Neil Young, Johnny Mercer, Billie Holiday, and (gasp!) the Monkees in pursuit of strong songs that can provide that instrument with a canvas. Her second Blue Note album extends Wilson's seductive pilgrimage beyond the conventions of jazz repertoire and accompaniment, yet it's her instincts as a jazz singer that inform these brilliant readings. The settings again step away from traditional small group jazz (for starters, there's no piano) to evoke the emotional core of these songs. Anyone who can turn the Monkees' "Last Train to Clarksville" into a slow-burning erotic vignette deserves your attention. --Sam Sutherland

From Jazziz
If any one vocalist embodies the skills, styles, and creativity of the 21st-century jazz singer, it is Cassandra Wilson. Early on, Wilson aspired to sound like Betty Carter - "to be Betty," she said in a 1996 JAZZIZ interview. But Carter implored Wilson to find her own way, and that she's done. Building upon the legacies of Carter and many other standard-bearing singers, yet focusing on her own personal influences, Wilson has achieved astonishing popular and critical success.

--- JAZZIZ Magazine Copyright © 2000, Milor Entertainment, Inc.

Customer Reviews

An amazing melding of styles into something truly unique!!
Cassandra Wilson has for years been one of the true jazz divas with a fertile imagination and a fine sense of swing. Her smokey seductive voice lends itself well to reinterpretting even the most hackneyed piece and thus giving it new life. When she sings of love both lost and found she does so with a worldliness and maturity so absent from the many pop singers making a living today. Here, in this recording, Cassandra tackles a wide variety of pieces from diverse sources. Everything from the Monkees to U2 to Billie Holliday with great success. Who would've thought that "Last Train To Clarksville" would or could be hip? Everything is given a unique treatment. The instrumentation and arrangements are unusual and often times brillliant. Everything has a live and intimate feel, as if she is in your living room singing just for you. This recording would appeal to anyone open to diversity of style and with an appreciation of real soulfulness without all the needless affectation. Cassandra is a master of re-interpretation, in that sense alone she is ahead of the pack of the recent group of new singers being hyped as notable heirs to the Billie Holliday/Ella Fitzgerald/Sarah Vaughan. Of these vocal giants Cassandra is closest to Billie Holliday in sincerity and with an outstanding unique voice like Sarah Vaughan with some Carmen McCrae thrown in. This is a courageous album being that the mix of styles might offend the jazz purists as well as being one of those recordings that could sit in both the soul, jazz, folk, blues or even pop CD bins. She is a singer who has delivered consistently over the years and refuses to be confined to the well trod upon path.

Cassandra Wilson's best album
Without a doubt New moon Daughter is my favorite Cassandra Wilson album. Not to say that the others weren't also excellent. They definetely were. I still listen to Blue night til dawn and traveling miles regularly. But New moon daughter is something else entirely. It's not that New moon is totally different than any other Cassandra wilson album. It contains no less than five cover songs which are all excellent. Especially the quietly powerful strange fruit. She really adds another demension to that song. Her version of love is blindness is just as spellbinding as u2 original. I'm so lonesome I could cry is as heartbreaking as any other version that i've heard. And her rendition os The last train to clarksville makes you forget that a group called the monkees ever made such as song. And her version of harvest moon blew me away. But the true strength in New moon daughter are the original songs. Of those my favorites are solomons song and until, both songs are sung with an almost lovers intimacy. It feels as if she singing to you. :) Overall an excellent album that will please most if not all fans of Cassandra's Wilson's music.

Quiet, yet fiery inspiration from one of today's greats
This recording would probably be worth it for nothing more than Wilson's reimagining of "Last Train to Clarksville," the 1966 hit written for the Monkees by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. The sassy Monkees version was a huge success, but Wilson, with the help of a superb arrangement and musicians, mines the song's anxiety and doubt in a completely different way, but just as mesmerizing.

Other high points on this enormously well-conceived disc are a gorgeous version of Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," a summery, engaging "Skylark" (yes, Hoagy Charmichael) and U2's "Love is Blindness," an aching ballad that Wilson imbues with overwhelming regret. And just the right choice to end is Neil Young's glowing "Harvest Moon," gently fading out in a haze of shimmering guitar work. Wilson's outstanding musicians -- creative, enthusiastic, yet never overpowering -- must share some of the credit for the success here.

If you go for Wilson's ethereal yet husky voice, not to mention her marvelous taste in choosing and reworking material, this recording shows her at her most luminous. Arguably her best to date, and one of the great jazz vocal recordings of the 1990's.