Coming Forth by Day (Cassandra Wilson album)
| Coming Forth by Day | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by Cassandra Wilson | ||||
| Released | April 6, 2015 | |||
| Recorded | Summer 2014 | |||
| Studio | Seedy Underbelly Studios, Valley Vaillage, CA | |||
| Genre | Jazz | |||
| Length | 58:12 | |||
| Label | Legacy Recordings | |||
| Producer | Nick Launay | |||
| Cassandra Wilson chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| The Guardian | |
| All About Jazz | |
| Exclaim! | 8/10[4] |
| Sputnikmusic | 4/5[5] |
| Elmore Magazine | 86/100[6] |
Coming Forth by Day is a studio album by American jazz singer Cassandra Wilson.[7] The album was released on April 6, 2015 via Legacy Recordings label.
Background
The album is a homage to legendary jazz vocalist Billie Holiday to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the singer's birth. The album includes 11 cover versions of famous jazz standards associated with Holiday and an original composition written by Cassandra Wilson—"Last Song (For Lester)"—imagined to be a heartbreaking final message from Holiday to her musical love, Lester Young.[8]
Reception
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic stated, "Perhaps the pairing of Cassandra Wilson and Billie Holiday carries a whiff of inevitability, but there's nothing predictable about Coming Forth by Day. Released to coincide with Holiday's centennial in 2015, Coming Forth by Day explicitly celebrates Lady Day by drawing upon standards she sang in addition to songs she wrote, but Wilson deliberately sidesteps the conventional by hiring Nick Launay as a producer. As a result of his work with Nick Cave, Launay mastered a certain brand of spooky Americana, something that comes in handy with the Holiday catalog, but Coming Forth by Day is never too thick with murk. It luxuriates in its atmosphere, sometimes sliding into a groove suggesting smooth '70s soul, often handsomely evoking a cinematic torch song -- moods that complement each other and suggest Holiday's work without replicating it. This is a neat trick: such flexibility suggests how adaptable Holiday's songbook is while underscoring the imagination behind Wilson's interpretations. Certainly, Launay deserves credit for his painterly production, but the success of Coming Forth by Day belongs entirely to Wilson, who proves that she's an heir to Holiday's throne by never once imitating her idol.
Christopher Loudon of JazzTimes wrote, "Though it’s disheartening to realize that even an artist as eminent as Cassandra Wilson had to turn to PledgeMusic to fund her centenary salute to Billie Holiday, it’s best to set aside such state-of-things ponderings and focus on the outcome. Which is, in a word, exquisite. It’s also clever, insightful and, though utterly respectful to Holiday as source and touchstone, strikingly original."[9]
John Fordham of The Guardian noted, "Singer Jose James’ recent tribute to Billie Holiday saw a fine singer and a hip jazz trio sprinkling personal magic on timeless songs with careful respect. Cassandra Wilson’s angle on Holiday is very different: a radical, big-production remake of the great vocalist’s music with the rhythm section from Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds giving the repertoire a thick-textured, abstract blues-rock feel, while a luxurious strings section embraces the ballads."
Track listing
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Don't Explain" | Arthur Herzog, Jr., Billie Holiday | 4:35 |
| 2. | "Billie's Blues" | Billie Holiday | 5:08 |
| 3. | "Crazy He Calls Me" | Carl Sigman, Sidney Keith Russell | 6:19 |
| 4. | "You Go to My Head" | Haven Gillespie, J. Fred Coots | 4:10 |
| 5. | "All of Me" | Gerald Marks, Seymour Simons | 4:07 |
| 6. | "The Way You Look Tonight" | Dorothy Fields, Jerome Kern | 3:51 |
| 7. | "Good Morning Heartache" | Dan Fisher, Ervin Drake, Irene Higginbotham | 4:57 |
| 8. | "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" | Harry M. Woods | 4:10 |
| 9. | "These Foolish Things" | Eric Maschwitz, Jack Strachey | 4:14 |
| 10. | "Strange Fruit" | Lewis Allan | 4:55 |
| 11. | "I'll Be Seeing You" | Irving Kahal, Sammy Fain | 6:10 |
| 12. | "Last Song (For Lester)" | Cassandra Wilson, Jon Cowherd, Kevin Breit, Martyn Casey, Robby Marshall, Thomas Wydler | 5:51 |
| Total length: | 58:12 | ||
Personnel
- Cassandra Wilson – vocals, guitar
- Robby Marshall – woodwind
- Charlie Burnham – violin
- Kevin Breit – guitar
- Jon Cowherd – piano, keyboards
- Lonnie Plaxico – double bass
- Davide Direnzo – drums
- T Bone Burnett - guitar
- Nick Zinner - guitar
- Thomas Wydler - drums
- Martyn P. Casey - bass
- Van Dyke Parks - string arrangements
- Nick Launay - producer
References
- ↑ "Coming Forth by Day". Allmusic. allmusic.com. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
- ↑ Fordham, John (6 April 2015). "Cassandra Wilson: Another Country – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
- ↑ BAILEY, C. MICHAEL (April 21, 2015). "Cassandra Wilson: Cassandra Wilson: Coming Forth By Day". All About Jazz. allaboutjazz.com. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
- ↑ Doole, Kerry (April 7, 2015). "Cassandra Wilson Coming Forth". Exclaim!. exclaim.ca. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
- ↑ "Cassandra Wilson: Coming Forth by Day". Sputnikmusic. sputnikmusic.com. Retrieved 22 May 2018.
- ↑ Hynes, Jim (May 26, 2015). "Cassandra Wilson: Coming Forth By Day". Elmore Magazine. elmoremagazine.com. Retrieved 24 May 2018.
- ↑ Fusilli, Jim (7 April 2015). "Review of 'Coming Forth by Day' by Cassandra Wilson: Tribute Album as Birthday Present". The Wall Street Journal. wsj.com. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
- ↑ "Cassandra Wilson – Coming Forth by Day". Discogs. discogs.com. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
- ↑ Loudon, Christopher (April 7, 2015). "Cassandra Wilson: Coming Forth by Day". JazzTimes. jazztimes.com. Retrieved 15 February 2018.