Cassandra Wilson: Belly Of The Sun : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

With a voice as rich and caramel-y as Sarah Vaughan's, and a delivery as intimately conversational as Joni Mitchell's, Cassandra Wilson is the perfect jazz singer for people who don't particularly like jazz singing. She covers rock songs -- Belly of the Sun includes "Wichita Lineman" and "The Weight" -- but doesn't pretend to be a rocker, while the semi-acoustic arrangements have the airy sophistication of Mitchell's Hejira.

Still, Belly of the Sun feels uncomfortably empty at points. Rather than shine new light on an old blues, her version of Mississippi Fred McDowell's "You Gotta Move" sounds like a Rolling Stones cover, while the bossa nova classic "Waters of March" seems less Brazilian than her take on James Taylor's "Only a Dream in Rio." In that sense, Wilson is a victim of her own success, putting so much energy into making jazz approachable that she forgets to make it meaningful.

J.D. CONSIDINE
(RS 897 - June 6, 2002)