"I'm always looking for ways to develop as an artist, especially as a jazz artist-to find different ways of testing my voice"
About this Quote
Restlessness is the point here, not a side effect. When Cassandra Wilson says she is "always looking for ways to develop", she frames artistry as a practice of motion: if the work stops changing, the artist stops hearing herself. Coming from a jazz musician, that insistence carries extra weight because jazz isn’t just a genre, it’s a method - a tradition built on revision, risk, and the willingness to sound unfinished in public.
The phrase "testing my voice" is the quiet tell. She’s not talking about vocal range or studio polish; she’s talking about identity. "Voice" in jazz is the hard-won signature that listeners claim to recognize in a single phrase, and Wilson is wary of letting that signature calcify into a logo. Testing implies pressure, failure, and proof. It suggests that the thing audiences want most - the familiar Cassandra Wilson sound - is precisely what she has to interrogate to stay honest.
There’s also a subtle pushback against the way the industry rewards sameness. For women in jazz especially, "voice" can be reduced to a marketable timbre: smoky, sultry, intimate. Wilson’s career has repeatedly refused that box, folding in blues, folk, and global textures without apologizing. The intent isn’t reinvention for novelty’s sake; it’s self-defense against becoming a museum version of yourself. Jazz, at its best, turns growth into a mandate, and Wilson is naming the work behind that mandate: keep moving, keep listening, keep risking the loss of the old you.
The phrase "testing my voice" is the quiet tell. She’s not talking about vocal range or studio polish; she’s talking about identity. "Voice" in jazz is the hard-won signature that listeners claim to recognize in a single phrase, and Wilson is wary of letting that signature calcify into a logo. Testing implies pressure, failure, and proof. It suggests that the thing audiences want most - the familiar Cassandra Wilson sound - is precisely what she has to interrogate to stay honest.
There’s also a subtle pushback against the way the industry rewards sameness. For women in jazz especially, "voice" can be reduced to a marketable timbre: smoky, sultry, intimate. Wilson’s career has repeatedly refused that box, folding in blues, folk, and global textures without apologizing. The intent isn’t reinvention for novelty’s sake; it’s self-defense against becoming a museum version of yourself. Jazz, at its best, turns growth into a mandate, and Wilson is naming the work behind that mandate: keep moving, keep listening, keep risking the loss of the old you.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|
More Quotes by Cassandra
Add to List
