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1993 · Album

Blue Light 'Til Dawn

↑ Cassandra Wilson

Blue Light 'Til Dawn

Where the Blues Meets the Quiet Dark

Wilson strips away the electric clutter and finds something truer underneath.

By 1993, Cassandra Wilson had spent years working in the avant-garde and post-bop worlds, making records that were admired but rarely heard outside jazz circles. Blue Light 'til Dawn (1993) changed that. It was her first album for Blue Note, and it announced a real shift in how she was working — out went the electric instruments and dense arrangements of her earlier records, and in came something spare and rooted: acoustic guitars, sparse percussion, minimal frills. The result sounds less like a typical jazz vocal album and more like late-night American music without a fixed address, drawing equally from the blues, folk, and country traditions as it does from jazz.

Who's playing
Kenny Davisdouble bass
Brandon Rossguitar
Vinxpercussion
Cyro Baptistapercussion
Jeff Haynespercussion
Bill McClellanpercussion
Charles Burnhamviolin
Lance Cartermembranophone
Tony Cedrasaccordion
Kevin Johnsonsnare drum
Olu Daracornet
Don Byronclarinet
Listen next
By Cassandra Wilson
New Moon Daughter 1996
Vinx's own record
Rooms in My Fatha's House 1991
Vinx plays percussion here
More Post-Bop
Double Take 1985
Woody Shaw
Recording Info
Track listing
1You Don’t Know What Love Is6:05
2Come On In My Kitchen4:54
3Tell Me You’ll Wait for Me4:48
4Children of the Night5:20
5Hellhound on My Trail4:35
6Black Crow4:37
7Sankofa2:02
8Estrellas2:00
9Redbone5:35
10Tupelo Honey5:37
11Blue Light ’Til Dawn5:07
12I Can’t Stand the Rain5:26
Musicians
Further Reading
Read more
DiscoverCassandra Wilson albums: where to start

Where next?

More by Cassandra Wilson
New Moon Daughter 1996
Traveling Miles 1999
Another Country 2012
Belly Of The Sun 2002
All 12 albums →
The musicians on this record
Rooms in My Fatha's House 1991
Vinx
plays percussion here
Their own records, close in time
More Post-Bop
Double Take 1985
Woody Shaw
African Venus 1994
Dewey Redman
Black Codes (From The Underground) 1985
Wynton Marsalis
Friendly Fire 1999
Joe Lovano
All 235 Post-Bop artists →

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