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Coming Forth by Day (album)

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Coming Forth by Day is the sixteenth and most recent solo studio album by American jazz singer Cassandra Wilson.[1] The album was released on April 6, 2015 (2015-04-06) via Legacy Recordings label.

Coming Forth by Day
Studio album by
Cassandra Wilson
ReleasedApril 6, 2015 (2015-04-06)
RecordedSummer 2014
StudioSeedy Underbelly Studios, Valley Village, CA
GenreJazz
Length58:12
LabelLegacy Recordings
ProducerNick Launay
Cassandra Wilson chronology
Another Country
(2012) 		Coming Forth by Day
(2015)

Background

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The album is an 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.[2] Wilson explained: "Coming Forth by Day is a homage dedicated to the beauty, power, and genius of Billie Holiday. A collection of musical spells, prescriptions for navigating the dubious myths surrounding her life and times, this record is a vehicle for the re-emergence of Billie’s songbook in the 21st century."[3]

Reception

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Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic     [4]
All About Jazz     [5]
Elmore Magazine86/100[6]
Exclaim!8/10[7]
The Guardian     [8]
Jazz Forum     [9]
Jazzwise     [10]
laut.de     [11]
The Sydney Morning Herald     [12]
Tom HullB+[13]

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."[4]

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."[14] Writing for DownBeat, Bobby Reed commented, "This disc, which includes 11 songs recorded by Billie Holiday, functions as an admirable tribute, but it doesn’t sound like Lady Day. Wilson employs her own husky, occasionally hushed singing style, not attempting to re-create Holiday’s famous vocal inflections—and certainly not copying her arrangements. Instead, Wilson assembled a stellar, “outside the box” ensemble to interpret this material for a new generation of listeners."[15]

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."[8] In his review for the Santa Barbara Independent, Charles Donelan wrote, "The album reveals yet another aspect of this visionary artist’s immense talent, as Wilson ventures into the orchestral territory mapped out by Arcade Fire, with her sainted muse Billie Holiday by her side."[16]

Track listing

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No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Don't Explain"Arthur Herzog, Jr., Billie Holiday4:35
2."Billie's Blues"Billie Holiday5:08
3."Crazy He Calls Me"Carl Sigman, Sidney Keith Russell6:19
4."You Go to My Head"Haven Gillespie, J. Fred Coots4:10
5."All of Me"Gerald Marks, Seymour Simons4:07
6."The Way You Look Tonight"Dorothy Fields, Jerome Kern3:51
7."Good Morning Heartache"Dan Fisher, Ervin Drake, Irene Higginbotham4:57
8."What a Little Moonlight Can Do"Harry M. Woods4:10
9."These Foolish Things"Eric Maschwitz, Jack Strachey4:14
10."Strange Fruit"Lewis Allan4:55
11."I'll Be Seeing You"Irving Kahal, Sammy Fain6:10
12."Last Song (For Lester)"Cassandra Wilson, Jon Cowherd, Kevin Breit, Martyn Casey, Robby Marshall, Thomas Wydler5:51
Total length:58:12

Personnel

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Band

  • Cassandra Wilson – vocals, guitar
  • Kevin Breit – acoustic and electric guitar, banjo, loops
  • Jon Cowherd – piano, organ
  • Martyn P. Casey – bass
  • Thomas Wydler – drums, percussion
  • Robby Marshall – woodwinds, melodica
  • Ming Vauze - guitar string, Loops (1, 10, 12)
  • T Bone Burnett – baritone guitar (2, 4, 7)
  • Nick Zinner – additional guitar and loops (4, 8–10, 12)
  • Eric Gorfain – violin with echos (3, 5, 8, 10, 11), string arrangements (3, 5, 8, 10), notes extended (4)
  • The Section Quartet (Eric Gorfain, Daphne Chen, Lauren Chipman, Richard Dodd) - string quartet (3, 5, 8, 10)
  • Van Dyke Parks – string arrangements (4, 6)
  • Van Dyke Parks Orchestra (4, 6)

Production

  • Nick Launay – producer, recording and mix, liner notes
  • Ed Gerrard - co-producer
  • Atom Greenspan - assistant producer and recording engineer
  • Bernie Grundman - mastering
  • Sherry Beth Mounce - project coordinator
  • Frank Harkins - art direction, design
  • Mark Seliger - photography

Charts

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Chart performance for Coming Forth by Day
Chart (2015) Peak
position
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)[17] 7
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)[18] 3
French Albums (SNEP)[19] 91
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[20] 56
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)[21] 94
Spanish Albums (PROMUSICAE)[22] 97
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)[23] 96
US Top Jazz Albums (Billboard)[24] 1[25]

References

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  1. ^ 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.
  2. ^ "Cassandra Wilson – Coming Forth by Day". Discogs. discogs.com. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
  3. ^ Flynn, Mike (13 January 2015). "Cassandra Wilson signs to Legacy Recordings for Billie Holiday tribute album". Jazzwise. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
  4. ^ a b "Coming Forth by Day". Allmusic. allmusic.com. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
  5. ^ BAILEY, C. MICHAEL (April 21, 2015). "Cassandra Wilson: Cassandra Wilson: Coming Forth By Day". All About Jazz. allaboutjazz.com. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
  6. ^ Hynes, Jim (May 26, 2015). "Cassandra Wilson: Coming Forth By Day". Elmore Magazine. elmoremagazine.com. Retrieved 24 May 2018.
  7. ^ Doole, Kerry (April 7, 2015). "Cassandra Wilson Coming Forth". Exclaim!. exclaim.ca. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
  8. ^ a b Fordham, John (6 April 2015). "Cassandra Wilson: Another Country – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
  9. ^ Wyszogrodzki, Daniel. "Coming Forth by Day | Jazz Forum". Jazz Forum (in Polish). Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  10. ^ Nicholson, Stuart (April 2015). "Review". Jazzwise. Retrieved 11 October 2020.
  11. ^ Brandstetter, Markus (3 April 2015). "Neue Nuancen und Farben im US-amerikanischen Songbook" (in German). laut.de. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  12. ^ Shand, John (23 July 2015). "Review: Rediscovering Billie Holiday's pain, genius and influence". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  13. ^ "Tom Hull: Grade List: Cassandra Wilson". Tom Hull. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  14. ^ Loudon, Christopher (April 7, 2015). "Cassandra Wilson: Coming Forth by Day". JazzTimes. jazztimes.com. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
  15. ^ Reed, Bobby (April 2015). "Cassandra Wilson Coming Forth By Day (Legacy)". DownBeat. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
  16. ^ Donelan, Charles (17 February 2015). "Cassandra Wilson". The Santa Barbara Independent. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
  17. ^ "Ultratop.be – Cassandra Wilson – Coming Forth by Day" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved July 22, 2020.
  18. ^ "Ultratop.be – Cassandra Wilson – Coming Forth by Day" (in French). Hung Medien. Retrieved July 22, 2020.
  19. ^ "Lescharts.com – Cassandra Wilson – Coming Forth by Day". Hung Medien. Retrieved July 22, 2020.
  20. ^ "Offiziellecharts.de – Cassandra Wilson – Coming Forth by Day" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved July 22, 2020.
  21. ^ "Dutchcharts.nl – Cassandra Wilson – Coming Forth by Day" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved July 22, 2020.
  22. ^ "Spanishcharts.com – Cassandra Wilson – Coming Forth by Day". Hung Medien. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
  23. ^ "Swisscharts.com – Cassandra Wilson – Coming Forth by Day". Hung Medien. Retrieved July 22, 2020.
  24. ^ "Cassandra Wilson Chart History (Top Jazz Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved August 24, 2020.
  25. ^ "CASSANDRA WILSON: CHART HISTORY". Billboard. billboard.com. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
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