Cassandra Wilson - Silver Pony

Grammy-winning jazz/pop vocalist Cassandra Wilson returns November 9 with Silver Pony, an interesting "hybrid" album mixing in new studio recordings with tracks culled from a European tour. As always, Wilson's immaculate phrasing and acclaimed interpretive powers are on display on the wide-ranging mix of songs -- covers and originals -- from the Beatles' "Blackbird" to the classic Big Easy standard "St. James Infirmary" (made famous by Louis Armstrong) to Billie Holiday's "Lover Come Back to Me." To call Wilson a jazz vocalist is accurate but really only half right -- the elements of folk, blues, pop and even country that peak through her music add an appeal that is both distinctive and adventurous.

Now in her mid-50's, Wilson's singing has become a thing of richly burnished texture and depth, her traditionally smoky signature voice now a husky alto. With Wilson emitting both cool reserve and warm, soulful heat, Muddy Waters' blues standard "Forty Days and Forty Nights" becomes a funky R+B shuffle of nimble New Orleans groove. Guests on Silver Pony -- named for a childhood photo op that has become the project's cover -- include John Legend, who plays and sings on "Watch the Sunrise", as well as trumpeter Terence Blanchard and rapper Common. "I prepare for each recording but you can never truly prepare,” Wilson says. “Because you don't really know what's coming. You just place yourself in the circumstances that will allow the project to reveal itself."

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Cassandra Wilson - "If It's Magic" (from Silver Pony)

Cassandra Wilson - "Blackbird" (from Silver Pony)