When Tropical Breeze was recorded in 1980 by the Brazilian group Jasmine, the music world had yet to hear of Cassandra Wilson. 24 at the time, the singer was still six years away from her first album as a leader and her second appearance on records (with altoist Steve Coleman) was five years in the future. Born in Jackson, Mississippi, Cassandra Wilson had had seven years of classical piano lessons, learned guitar, and played clarinet in her high school’s concert and marching bands. But it was as a singer that she began working professionally in the mid-1970s, gaining experience in a variety of situations in the South during the five years before she recorded with Jasmine. Even many of the most devoted Cassandra Wilson fans have probably not heard her debut although virtually every jazz listener now knows who she is. Wilson recorded with Jasmine during a year when she lived in New Orleans, a period when she also worked with Ellis Marsalis and...