Cassandra Wilson - New Moon Daughter 
Original Release Date: March 5, 1996 
Audio CD: March 5, 1996 
Label: Blue Note Records 
Quality CBR 320 kbps

NEW MOON DAUGHTER won the 1997 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance.

Amazon.com essential recording
Her luscious alto has the depth and texture of a great tenor saxophonist, but Cassandra Wilson's defining asset is a postmodern song sense that enables her to surf through Son House, Neil Young, Johnny Mercer, Billie Holiday, and (gasp!) the Monkees in pursuit of strong songs that can provide that instrument with a canvas. Her second Blue Note album extends Wilson's seductive pilgrimage beyond the conventions of jazz repertoire and accompaniment, yet it's her instincts as a jazz singer that inform these brilliant readings. The settings again step away from traditional small group jazz (for starters, there's no piano) to evoke the emotional core of these songs. Anyone who can turn the Monkees' "Last Train to Clarksville" into a slow-burning erotic vignette deserves your attention. ~ Sam Sutherland

If any one vocalist embodies the skills, styles, and creativity of the 21st-century jazz singer, it is Cassandra Wilson. Early on, Wilson aspired to sound like Betty Carter - "to be Betty," she said in a 1996 JAZZIZ interview. But Carter implored Wilson to find her own way, and that she's done. Building upon the legacies of Carter and many other standard-bearing singers, yet focusing on her own personal influences, Wilson has achieved astonishing popular and critical success. ~ Jazziz

Without a doubt New moon Daughter is my favorite Cassandra Wilson album. Not to say that the others weren't also excellent. They definetely were. I still listen to Blue night til dawn and traveling miles regularly. But New moon daughter is something else entirely. It's not that New moon is totally different than any other Cassandra wilson album. It contains no less than five cover songs which are all excellent. Especially the quietly powerful strange fruit. She really adds another demension to that song. Her version of love is blindness is just as spellbinding as u2 original. I'm so lonesome I could cry is as heartbreaking as any other version that i've heard. And her rendition os The last train to clarksville makes you forget that a group called the monkees ever made such as song. And her version of harvest moon blew me away. But the true strength in New moon daughter are the original songs. Of those my favorites are solomons song and until, both songs are sung with an almost lovers intimacy. It feels as if she singing to you. :) Overall an excellent album that will please most if not all fans of Cassandra's Wilson's music. ~ "williedynamite"

Personnel:
Cassandra Wilson – vocals, acoustic guitar
Cyro Baptista – percussion, Jew's-Harp, shaker
Dougie Bowne – percussion, drums, whistle, vibraphone
Gary Breit – Hammond organ
Kevin Breit – acoustic & electric guitar, banjo, bouzouki
Brandon Ross – acoustic & electric guitar
Charles Burnham – violin
Tony Cedras– accordion
Graham Haynes – cornet
Lawrence "Butch" Morris – cornet
Jeff Haynes – percussion, bongos
Peepers – background vocals
Mark Peterson, Lonnie Plaxico – bass
Gib Wharton – pedal steel guitar
Chris Whitley – guitar on 1

Cassandra Wilson - New Moon Daughter Tracks:
01  Strange Fruit    5:35   
02  Love Is Blindness    4:56
03  Solomon Sang    5:56   
04  Death Letter    4:13
05  Skylark    4:08   
06  Find Him    4:39   
07  I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry    4:51   
08  Last Train To Clarksville    5:16   
09  Until    6:30   
10  A Little Warm Death    5:45   
11  Memphis    5:05   
12  Harvest Moon  5:01