Luxury Experience - Cassandra Wilson

Cassandra Wilson surprises everyone with her latest release Cassandra Wilson - Silver Pony where she includes a selection of live tracks, something she has not done since 1991, and adds in special guests Ravi Coltrane and John Legend on a release that crosses genres with some Jazz, Blues, and Delta Blues.

Cassandra Wilson - Silver Pony: Lover Come Back to Me; Went Down to St. James Infirmary; A Night in Seville; Beneath a Silver Moon; Saddle Up My Pony; If It's Magic; Forty Days and Forty Nights; Silver Pony; A Day In the Life of a Fool; Blackbird; Watch the Sunrise

Personnel: Cassandra Wilson: Vocals (Tracks 1, 2, 4-7, 9-11), Synthesizer (Track 4), Bass Drum (Track 11); Marvin Sewell: Electric Guitar (Tracks 1-5, 7-10), Acoustic Guitar (Track 6); Reginald Veal: Acoustic Bass (Tracks 1, 2, 5, 7-9), Electric Bass (Tracks 4, 6, 10); Herlin Riley: Drums (Tracks 1-5, 7-10); Jonathan Batiste: Piano (Tracks 1, 2, 4-10), Fender Rhodes (Track 3); Lekan Babalola: Percussion (Tracks 2-4, 7-10); Ravi Coltrane: Tenor Saxophone (Track 4); Helen Gillet: Cello, Vielle (Track 11); John Legend: Vocals (Track 11), Piano (Track 11); Luke Laird: Acoustic Rhythm Guitar (Track 11); Brandon Ross: Acoustic Guitar (Track 11)

Cassandra Wilson - Silver Pony was produced by Cassandra Wilson and John Fischbach, and released on the Blue Note Records label. Cassandra Wilson, the 2008 Grammy® winner for Loverly, surprises everyone with a fresh look at Jazz, Blues, Delta Blues, and more on her latest release Silver Pony. Looking to follow-up the award-winning release Loverly, she includes a selection of live tracks that she blends with tracks from the studio using musicians from her past, and present, along with special guests Ravi Coltrane and John Legend; the release is a little of this, a little of that, and a whole lot of Cassandra.

The album leads off with the live cut Lover Come Back, which is the first live track from Cassandra since 1991, a true treasure. A swing beat that has the band jumping during that special evening in Granada, Spain when it was recorded; the song is brash, sexy, and powerful, just like Cassandra Wilson. The track Went Down to St. James Infirmary is another live track recorded from the Granada, Spain gig and this is sultry Cassandra against a jazz improvisational beat that takes a life of its own, a testament to the power of live recordings.

The track A Night in Seville is an instrumental track from another remarkable evening in Spain. The song is pure improvisation as the band lets the live surrounding dictate. Moving back into the studio, Cassandra wrote the track Beneath a Silver Moon, which was inspired from an instrumental segment from the Spain gigs. As she listened to the song, the lyrics started to evolve in her mind and the result was Beneath a Silver Moon; on the release she seamlessly transitions from the live A Night in Seville to Beneath a Silver Moon and there is nothing lost from the magic of the live segment to the studio complement.

Another gem from the live session is the Delta Blues track Saddle Up My Pony, written by Charlie Patton, where Cassandra shows her musicianship and love of all things music with stellar blues vocals. The track If It's Magic has a seductive melody that Cassandra matches with her sultry vocals and the resultant song will tug at your heartstrings.

The arrangement of Forty Days and Forty Nights, written by Muddy Waters, adds some punch to the original sound that punctuates Cassandra's vocals as she sings "Forty days and forty nights since my baby broke my heart." The title track Silver Pony is a short instrumental that draws its inspiration from the track Caravan that was a recorded during an engagement in Seville, Spain.

The live version of the classic A Day in the Life of a Fool has a bossa-nova beat and Cassandra is in complete control of the vocals as she saunters her way through the song. The classic Blackbird takes on a new persona as the band jazzes up the arrangement and Cassandra moves through the vocals switching between reading the lyrics to offering her jazzy rendition. The release closes with the track Watch the Sunrise that has Cassandra doing a duet with John Legend who wrote the song; a fitting closure to a release that is a little of this, a little of that, and pure Cassandra.