Customer Rating: 
Summary: Unpretentious yet masterly
Comment: Cassandra Wilson at her best.
Wonderful, interesting interpretations of well-known songs with a team of musician who really bring out the best of Cassandra.
My favorite: Caravan! Rarely presented with such cool.
Contrary to some of the other reviewers I judge Ms Wilson's detached and apparently uncommitted way of delivering the songs as a great asset of this CD.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Many fine moments, some funky grooves.
Comment: Cassandra's smoky alto remains one of the most beguiling voices in jazz and blues.
After it was wreathed in a high-tech production by the producer T. Bone Burnett on Thunderbird, she goes back to acoustic basics of traditional jazz vocals here, with a set almost entirely comprised of vintage tunes recorded with a small combo featuring the brilliant pianist du jour, Jason Moran and the guitar of Marvin Sewell.
"Loverly" was produced in a rented house in her Mississippi hometown, with assembled invited musician friends who got down to the business of recording then and there, making this recording so relaxed and personal that it feels like a live set in your own living room.
It's impressive to hear the class and character Cassandra has injected into these 20th century songs.
With the help of Yoruba percussionist Lekan Babalola she knits West African rhythms into stripped-down arrangements, featuring Lonnie Plaxico (bass), Jason Moran (piano) and Herlin Riley (drums).
The decisive player, however, is Nigerian percussionist Lekan Babalola, whose polyrhythmic flurries perk up Duke Ellington's "Caravan" and a version of "
Gone With the Wind" whose elegant unison guitar and piano recalls Steely Dan.
He's at the heart of "Arere", inspired by the Yoruban god of willpower, on which Cassandra could be singing in a native dialect, or scatting.
"Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" is a true eye-opener. Cassandra's voice is so deep and resonant it's tangible, and she tells her story of loneliness backed only by Marvin Sewell's silvery acoustic guitar. He reappears playing ethereal slide guitar on "Black Orpheus", supported by Cuban-sounding percussion and piano, under Cassandra's whispered, desolate vocals.
"The Very Thought of You", a sublime duet with guest bassist Reginald Veal, features a rhythmic solo and sinuous vocals.
It is the up-tempo tracks that succeed in turning sparks to flame here. A traddish version of "Lover Come Back To Me" smears Cassandra's mellifluous vocals across Jason Moran's wild piano playing and "Arere", the only original on the album, is a frenetic fusion of unstoppable, cascading rhythms. On "Caravan" too, hectic percussion tumbles over jumbled piano and guitar, with Cassandra's voice at the other side of the room one moment and eerily close the next.
For many, it's Wilson's blues singing that stands out and she invests warhorses such as "St James Infirmary" and "Dust My Broom with a funky vitality.
All in all, not quite a classic, but many fine moments.
Highlights: "Caravan", "St James Infirmary", "
Gone With the Wind", and "Arere".
