Cassandra Wilson
Thunderbird

Like No Other.

In the end, it’s the usual old story.
What are you willing to give, when you're captivated by an image of her and almost suddenly, foolish sentimentalist, discover that it won't be eternal, that her nature is complex, changeable? That she is different from what you stubbornly worship and probably, to some extent, even from what she herself knows about herself?
(Yes, it's true. It sounds like the prologue to a love story. Perhaps it is.)
Are you willing to reconsider. And you know it. So, after a quick “disappointed” listen and a summary judgment, you end up rummaging again through the shelves of your trusty little shop and take it home, the latest album by Cassandra Wilson.
And you decide to give it a new listen, forgetting the magic she had managed to impose, enveloped in the refined and meticulously crafted sonic weave that her collaborators wove allowing one of the most deeply mysterious and enchanting voices in African American music in recent years to resonate so mysteriously close to some unexplored area that survives, incredibly, somewhere within you.

Certainly, it was almost inevitable to be seduced by albums like "Blue Light 'Til Dawn", perhaps her most beautiful. And then sink into the enchantment of "New Moon Daughter".
Covers of blues classics, from Robert Johnson to Hank Williams, literally resurrected to an unheard-of splendor. A spine-chilling version of Joni Mitchell's "Black Crow." And then Neil Young, Van Morrison. Even U2's "Love Is Blindness" was stripped and elevated by a miraculous interpretation of that so dark and shining, disorienting vocal timbre. But that happened over ten years ago.

Already, Glamoured, three years ago, showed you, from the title, a different version. After the warm and dusty flavor dissolved among the notes of “Belly Of The Sun” (2002), the lady from Mississippi returned wrapped in the sparkling garments of a refined interpreter, enveloped by the most accurate soundscape arranged so far. The shimmer of the cover promised the formal perfection you would find in the grooves. And some regret for that sensual warmth that still echoed, after some time, associated with her name.

But today, with "Thunderbird," it's like seeing her for the first time.
She gathered the years behind her, extracted the essence, wrote many of the songs she performs, made a feline leap, and finds herself in a new territory, crowded with suggestions and dangers. Fascinating and dangerous.
The expedition is carried out together with a large band of collaborators, some new. Marc Ribot, however, who plays one of the four guitars present in the album, is a faithful and valuable ally. Cassandra could not have chosen better company for such a journey. But, by Wilson's own admission, T Bone Burnett is the beacon. Capable of illuminating the path with a homogeneous light, meticulously curating the details, the nuances among the sounds, even where the risk of a "classy mess" lurks at every step.

You start hopping, almost carefree, with one of her compositions, heading towards Mexico. And she immediately leaves me stunned, with that very light and almost adolescent timbre. But a few bars later, and the voice, surrounded by the dense layering of sounds, shifts to familiar tones. And I recognize it. But it has a new energy, a playful lightheartedness.
In the second track, the atmosphere becomes rarefied. The treatment of "Closer To You", a very sensual transcription of a song by Dylan's child, is almost a jazzy trip-hop that closes on the round vibrations of Reginald Veal's double bass. The quintessence of intimacy, she says of the original song. Another small skepticism swept away by a superb interpretation, I say.

And then down, first gently on Ribot’s slide hints, then decisively into the blues heart of an "Easy Rider" that even Blind Lemon Jefferson would have liked, in this extended yet dense version. It's her, my Cassandra, I recognize her. I recognize her persuasive strength, capable of making a piece resonate as if it were written just for her.

But another turn awaits me, to return to today. To return to the future. "It Would Be Easy" bears her signature and Burnett's hand, in the measured weaving of sounds, guided to a pace that captures you immediately. And Keefus Ciancia's keyboards prove to be, here too, one of the new and determining elements in the amalgam of this work.
It continues with yet another immersion in time, to recover a traditional white piece like "Red River Valley" and transform it, on the laconic notes of Ribot's slide, into a minimal blues that brings her magical voice to the forefront and allows me to savor its essence.

With "Poet", a fluid and hypnotic ballad, the enchantment continues. And I must now admit the mistake of a hasty and incautious judgment.
This album confirms a talent: a kaleidoscope where luminous, colorful, and vivid fragments coexist thanks to perfect production and an interpretation that always chooses the most suitable register for each one, revealing maturity that surprisingly resolves into freshness.

A small nod also to the penultimate track, signed by T. Bone Burnett, "Strike a Match", magmatic and perfectly arranged, where Cassandra's voice stretches over soft and seductive registers. And which represents perhaps the most "atypical" moment of this collection, closing in the sinuous acoustic dimension of "Tarot", another track signed by Wilson.

But it's to Willie Dixon that I return, to the version of his classic that Cassandra gives us on track 7, to close this page.
"I Want To Be Loved", the title of the piece.
And it's all you can do, throwing doubts and hesitations to the wind, after listening to "Thunderbird."
Love her, this voice. Let yourself be captivated, surrender to a new version of an "old" love.
She can take us wherever she wants, we'll follow her.
Because there's no one else like her.



Cassandra Wilson: voice
T Bone Burnett: guitar-voice
Marc Ribot: guitar
Keb Mo: guitar-voice
Colin Linden: guitar-mandolin
Keith "Keefus" Ciancia: piano-keyboards
Miguel Elizondo: bass-guitar-keyboards
Reginald Veal: bass
William Maxwell: electric bass
Jay A. Bellerose: drums-percussions
Carla Azar: drums
Jim Keltner: drums