Cassandra Wilson - Lovely

In 2006, somebody in the Barbican audience barracked Cassandra Wilson into singing a standard. It was a reminder of how infrequently she has applied her dark-toned contralto and taut delivery to mainstream jazz over the past decade, often focusing instead on a modernised rural blues. But if this jazzier album seems to betray some unwise choices early on (the chugging Django Reinhardt retro-swing behind Lover Come Back to Me, and a coy My Fair Lady title track that doesn't suit Wilson's grainy unsentimentality), it soon reveals formidable strengths. One of the biggest is pianist Jason Moran, whose incisive rejoinders and rhythmic energy mesh seamlessly with Marvin Sewell's guitar lines and the percussion partnership of Herlin Riley and Lekan Babalola. Wilson even lets herself travel back to the Betty Carterish scat that sometimes surfaced early in her career on A Sleepin' Bee. It's one of this enigmatic artist's most satisfying albums in a long time. Track Listing: Lover Come Back To Me; Black Orpheus; Wouldn't It Be Loverly; Gone With The Wind; Caravan; 'Til There Was You; Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most; Arere; St. James Infirmary; Dust My Broom; The Very Thought Of You; A Sleepin' Bee.