Re: Passages
Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2026 10:39 pm
Cassandra Wilson, one of the most celebrated jazz vocalists of the past 40 years. She also attained a level of popularity that perhaps none of her peers matched without resorting to a diluted (i.e. bland and dull) form of music that barely showed any of the improvisatory mastery she was capable of and never sacrificed in her work.
She makes a prominent appearance in Ken Burns’s otherwise uneven and deeply flawed Jazz, made cameos in a couple of Hollywood films (Junior and The Score where Robert De Niro's character owned a jazz club) and she was once married to Isaach de Bankolé during the early 2000s. I won’t go into the political controversies that erupted on her social media accounts - quite a shock to many of her fans - but the outpouring of tributes from the jazz community show the depth and durability of her friendships, a testament to not only her artistry but her personality as well.
These days, I listen mostly to her earlier work from her first decade of recording. (One reason her death is a shock is that I didn’t realize she was already pushing 40 by the time she had her breakthrough into mainstream stardom.) Blue Skies is probably her best album as a traditional jazz vocalist covering the standards, but she didn’t stop there and really made her name with Blue Light 'til Dawn and above all New Moon Daughter.
She makes a prominent appearance in Ken Burns’s otherwise uneven and deeply flawed Jazz, made cameos in a couple of Hollywood films (Junior and The Score where Robert De Niro's character owned a jazz club) and she was once married to Isaach de Bankolé during the early 2000s. I won’t go into the political controversies that erupted on her social media accounts - quite a shock to many of her fans - but the outpouring of tributes from the jazz community show the depth and durability of her friendships, a testament to not only her artistry but her personality as well.
These days, I listen mostly to her earlier work from her first decade of recording. (One reason her death is a shock is that I didn’t realize she was already pushing 40 by the time she had her breakthrough into mainstream stardom.) Blue Skies is probably her best album as a traditional jazz vocalist covering the standards, but she didn’t stop there and really made her name with Blue Light 'til Dawn and above all New Moon Daughter.