This is Jazz?

Cassandra Wilson started her recording career twenty years ago as an actual jazz singer, compared to Betty Carter in her readings of the standard repertoire. But by the time she signed with Blue Note in 1993, she was stretching the boundaries on her way to creating the unclassifiable genre-free music for which she's become known. (Her second Blue Note disc, New Moon Daughter, included songs by The Monkees, Hank Williams, Billie Holiday, U2, Hoagy Carmichael and Neil Young.)

KMO and over again!

This is the most beautiful, interesting, compelling CD I've heard in many months. Wilson's smoky vocals are as amazing as ever. What sets this CD apart from her other efforts is the experimental, electronic sounds -- it defies labeling or classification. I usually jump around on a CD, but here I am listening to this one all the way through -- and over again!

Modern sounds meet electric blues.

Cassandra Wilson's "Thunderbird", like every album of hers that came before, does not sound like its predecessors. This album finds Wilson exploring electric blues, programmed beats, and any number of sounds that come floating in and out. The resulting stew is, honestly, a bit unfulfilling-- I'm generally all for this sort of experimentation, but it seems the best pieces are the more conventional ones.