CASSANDRA WILSON, 30th ANNIVERSARY NEW MOON DAUGHTER / CAPE MAY CONVENTION HALL / SUNDAY, 3:00 PM

It was 30 years ago, back in 1995, that jazz singer Cassandra Wilson began recording New Moon Daughter. That impactful offering, which artfully blended jazz and Americana, would have a profound effect on Wilson’s career, catapulting her to a new echelon of fame in the jazz world and earning her a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance. Suddenly, with the release of her second Blue Note album with producer Craig Street (following 1993’s Blue Light ’til Dawn), Wilson was being hailed as the new empress of jazz singers, mentioned in the same breath as such iconic vocalists as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Betty Carter. In a rave review, DownBeat declared New Moon Daughter an instant classic and awarded it five stars. The reviewer praised Wilson’s "warmly inviting and authentic voice,” and her “genius” in reinterpreting the Great American Songbook.

Few other vocalists would have the audacity to tackle Billie Holiday’s anthemic “Strange Fruit,” and yet Wilson’s own emotive version stands apart from the original. Add in the blues of Robert Johnson’s “32-20,” The Monkees’ “Last Train to Clarksville” and a jaw-dropping cover of Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon,” all rendered with deep, dark tones and seductive intent, and you have one of the most potent recordings of the ‘90s. In her Exit Zero Jazz Festival debut, Wilson will rekindle that magic of that recording from 30 years ago.

The Sound

Intimate, sensuous and swinging, New Moon Daughter also finds Wilson wrapping her smoky, honey-toned voice around jazz, blues and pop classics, including Son House’s mournful “Death Letter,” Hoagy Carmichael’s classic “Skylark” and a tender, heartbreaking cover of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” And they are all delivered with Wilson’s signature all-knowing sense of cool allure.