Blue Note Records
2006
Thunderbird
About This Album
Cassandra Wilson's swinging for her own creative fences this time. The sultry, gentle, acoustic guitars on her last five recordings have been largely jettisoned for a more keyboard-and percussion -friendly approach -- which includes lots of programming and loops. To that end, she's enlisted flavor-of-the-year producer T-Bone Burnett and keyboardist Keith Ciancia. This pair hired a stellar group of players that include drummer Jim Keltner, bassist Reginald Veal (a near-constant here), guitarists Colin Linden and Marc Ribot, and programming whiz Mike Elizondo. Mike Piersante plays "keypercussion" (read: drum loops), Jay Bellerose and Bill Maxwell also contribute kit work. Keb Mo' guests on a track. Ever since signing to Blue Note, Wilson's walked a razor-wire between blues, pop, and jazz, but her recordings have always been intimate affairs whether she was singing songs by Robert Johnson or Van Morrison. While she does preserve a degree of that intimacy here, some of it has fallen by the wayside in favor of the near-constant presence of drum loops, with subtle samples dropped in giving the entire proceeding a slightly more urban feel. A startling example is "Go to Mexico," where a percussion loop and the vocal chant from the Wild Tchapitoulas "Hey Pocky A-Way," are directly sampled with new words and instrumentation layered over the top -- including Veal copying the bassline.
Track List (try tracks 1,3,4,5,6 and 7)

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