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New Moon Daughter is a studio album by American jazz singer Cassandra Wilson that was released by Blue Note in 1995. The album reached No. 1 on the Billboard magazine jazz album chart and also won the Grammy Award as the Best Jazz Vocal Performance.[1]

New Moon Daughter
Studio album by Cassandra Wilson
Released	1995
Studio	Turtle Creek Barn at Bearsville (Woodstock, New York) Sound on Sound (New York)
Genre	Jazz, blues
Length	61:26
Label	Blue Note
Producer	Craig Street
Cassandra Wilson chronology
Blue Light 'til Dawn (1993) New Moon Daughter (1995) Rendezvous (1997)

Background

In an interview for New York magazine, Wilson explained that the album's name comes from an old Ashanti proverb—"Sickness comes with the waning moon; the new moon cures disease". The album contains twelve songs, five of which were written by Wilson.[2]

Reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[3]
DownBeat	[4]
Entertainment Weekly	A−[5]
The Guardian	[6]
Houston Chronicle	[7]
Los Angeles Times	[8]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz	[9]
Rolling Stone	[10]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[11]
The Village Voice	B−[12]

A reviewer for Gramophone was generally positive about the album, praising Wilson's voice and her interpretations of the standards included. However, they said that compared to the originals, Wilson's versions may not be as powerful. They noted that with this album, Wilson appears to move away "from jazz heartlands or cutting edges and towards the embrace of 'pop cult' status." The reviewer particularly enjoyed "Skylark" (calling it "sublime") and "Last Train to Clarksville" ("a delight").[13]

In a positive review of the album, Rolling Stone's Geoffrey Himes noted its similarity to Wilson's previous album Blue Light 'til Dawn, but added that New Moon Daughter has more feeling and a darker tone. He wrote that Wilson makes Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" "her own". Himes noted the album's overall slow tempo as a weakness, wishing for a little more rhythmic diversity.[10] Scott Yanow of AllMusic described Wilson's voice on the album as "quite bored and emotionally detached" but noted that she was "stretching herself".[3]

Village Voice critic Robert Christgau was less impressed, writing that "most of these songs escape her attentions without a mark on them. Which isn't to mention the 'Strange Fruit' that establishes the surpassing weirdness of Billie's original, or the disastrous Monkees cover, designed to prove [Wilson] has a sense of humor I'm now convinced isn't there."[12]

Appearances in other media

The song "Death Letter" from the album was used as an opening theme in the third season of television series True Detective released in 2019.[14]

Track listing

Personnel

Music[15]

• 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 – bass
• Lonnie Plaxico – bass
• Gib Wharton – pedal steel guitar
• Chris Whitley – guitar (1)

Production[15]

• Craig Street – producer
• Danny Kopelson – engineer, mixing
• Greg Calbi – mastering
• John Chiarolanzo – assistant engineer
• Bill Emmons – assistant engineer
• Scott Gormley – assistant engineer
• Fred Kervorkian – editing, assistant engineer
• Steve Regina – assistant engineer
• John R. Reigart III – assistant engineer
• Tom Schick – assistant engineer

Design[15]

• David Mayenfisch – photography
• Berkeley Barnhill Stewart;- graphic design

Chart positions

Year	Chart	Position
1996	Billboard Top Jazz Albums	1
	Billboard The Billboard 200	141
	Billboard Heatseekers	9

References

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