Music : Glamoured
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 7243581860240
Label: Blue Note Records
Manufacturer: Blue Note Records
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Blue Note Records
Release Date: October 07, 2003
Sales Rank: 84127
Studio: Blue Note Records
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Editorial Review:
Album Description:
"Glamoured" is a Gaelic word meaning to be whisked away, says vocalist and songwriter Cassandra Wilson, explaining the title of her new CD. "It's like being in a daydream, those split seconds when you're transfixed and your eyes don't move and you have to shake yourself out of it. This album captures the feeling of that reverie."
Indeed, Wilson sets such a mood with her trademark mix of first-rate originals and adventurous covers of other songwriters' works, this time picking material by Sting, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Muddy Waters and Abbey Lincoln. Such eclectic tastes come naturally to Wilson, who began her musical career performing in and around her hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. "Down South, musicians have to be able to play in many different circumstances and in many contexts," she says. "They have to play jazz, they have to integrate the blues, and they have to know country. And the lines are kinda blurry sometimes, 'cause that's what everybody wants to hear."
For the recording of "Glamoured" Cassandra once again returned to her hometown of Jackson, Mississippi with a list of good songs and an open mind. "For some albums, I'll have a very clear idea of where I want it to go," she says, "but this time I had questions about what kinds of sounds to explore."
Average Rating: 
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I've personally found Cassandra's CDs to be somewhat uneven. While her singing is always first-rate, the instrumental and vocal arrangements of the many cover versions on her albums are sometimes inspired but too often pedestrian (a common criticism of contemporary jazz). This CD's mix of jazz, blues, and pop songs however is one of her best efforts. There's a good version of Sting's "Fragile," a spirited reworking of Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay," and a killer rendition of Muddy Waters' "Honey Bee." When you cover songs this familiar, you need to be respectful of the original and yet take an innovative approach. Cassandra really delivers on this recording.
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Applies her now distinctive fusion-Delta steel, jazz, deep funkiness, and the voice-to a wide range of songs, making them all her own. Many reveal the originals only with close attention. Most coherent collection of her settings that I can recall-all as quiet but insistent and vital as the sound of your blood passing in your veins. The jazz-funk-country blues captures the calm of night in a swamp, but also the vague foreboding of a primordial presence there. Lyrics of tr 1 by Sting capture the mood of the cd as a whole: "Like rain from the stars, how fragile we are." That said, I repeatedly hear her voice as another instrument in the mix before I hear any words. [53:29]
Rating:  -
I have asked, as I'm sure many others, that amazon just tell us in the product write-up if a CD is "copy protected" - i.e. cannot be added to a legitimate digital music collection. In the case of this CD I was deeply dissapointed to not be able to play it anywhere I use my iPod. As for Cassandra, yes characterful and typical - maybe a bit predictable and "cookie cutter" by now? I don't know - but she has sooo many similar sounding albums out now that I'm wondering if there's a big machine where you feed in tunes & it then "Cassandrafies" it automatically....
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A jazz singer with the heart of a folk singer and the soul of a blues singer, Wilson also has exceptional taste in song, along with original arranging skills. Wilson also seemingly has no musical prejudices. She is equally at home interpreting the music of the Beatle-mimic Monkees ("Last Train to Clarksville", New Moon Daughter) as that of blues pioneer Robert Johnson ("Come on in My Kitchen," Blue Light `Til Dawn). Likewise, she is equally comfortable recording a song by country icon Willie Nelson ("Crazy," Glamoured) as one by outspoken jazz purist Abby Lincoln ("Throw it Away," Glamoured). And she is as comfortable with folk rock songwriter Bob Dylan ("Lay Lady Lay," Glamoured) as jazz composer Miles Davis ("Seven Steps to Heaven," Traveling Miles). Moreover, she can make the most banal seeming material sound profound (as in her haunting, bluesy take on "Last Train to Clarksville"). Wilson can make you appreciate songs and songwriters that you might otherwise not give a second thought, such as when she recorded "Witchita Lineman " (Belly of the Sun) by the underrated `60s and `70s songwriter Jimmy Webb, composer, for better or worse, of the song "McArthur Park, " ("someone left the cake out in the rain . . . "). Part of Wilson's unprejudicial outlook on music can be explained by her southern upbringing, and on her latest CD, Glamoured, Wilson returned to her Mississippi roots both figuratively and literally, as she recorded many of the tracks in Jackson, including the ... Read More
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Cassandra Wilson is an original. After years of swinging with a trio, she switched gears and turned to a less traditional sound: lots of guitar and percussion. The result is an earthy fusion of jazz, folk, pop, blues and R&B. When you hear the soul in this woman's husky voice and the way she wraps her style around a lyric, you'll understand why Time Magazine declared her "America's Best Singer." On this CD,
Wilson applies her golden touch to Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay," Sting's "Fragile" and even the untouchable "Crazy."
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