The fine line between jazz, blues and world music is explored through the art of two master performers.

The 2007 SummerStage season will open with the return of one of our favorite performers, vocalist Cassandra Wilson. While she’s widely acknowledged as one of America’s best jazz singers, Wilson’s artistic vision defies categorization, incorporating as it does deep blues, folk, soul, rock and world music. Her 2006 album Thunderbird is her most rhythmically adventurous, replete with drum loops and sampling. As always, Wilson’s choice of material reflects her wide-ranging tastes, and on Thunderbird she mixes stirring originals with mesmerizing covers of songs by everyone from Jakob Dylan to Blind Lemon Jefferson.

A fixture of NYC’s jazz scene for over thirty years, Olu Dara has worked with David Murray, Henry Threadgill, James “Blood” Ulmer, hip-hop superstar Nas (who happens to be his son) and Cassandra Wilson. His trumpet playing earned him comparisons to Roy Eldridge, but when he released his solo debut, In The World: From Natchez to New York, in 1998, he had metamorphosized into a country blues guitarist and singer. His success at moving so effortlessly between different worlds of music is just one indication of Olu Dara’s creative prowess.

Supported in part by Museum for African Art