Jazz singer Cassandra Wilson dies at 70
American jazz singer and songwriter Cassandra Wilson has died at the age of 70 in her hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. As Anadolu Agency reports, the artist died at home surrounded by family, close friends and her longtime manager Robert Torrez.
In a statement, Torrez called Wilson a Grammy winner and a legendary jazz artist. The cause of death was not disclosed.
Style and recognition
Cassandra Wilson was known for her deep, melancholic contralto. In her work, she combined jazz, blues and folk, while also using elements of pop music, country and R&B. In 2001, Time magazine named her America’s best singer, noting her soulful, sensual and lyrical performance.
Jackson Mayor John Horhn called Wilson an outstanding native of the city and a unique musical voice. Musician Jon Batiste said in his tribute that her sound was associated with the American South, and that her style of performance and blending of folk, R&B and diasporic music with experimental and popular styles had a significant influence on him.
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Career and awards
Wilson, who was born Cassandra Fowlkes in Jackson in 1955, began playing piano at the age of six and guitar at 12. In the early 1980s, she moved to New York, met saxophonist Steve Coleman and became one of the founders of the M-Base Collective.
The singer gained wide critical acclaim with the album Blue Skies, released in 1988. After signing with Blue Note Records, her breakthrough record was 1993’s Blue Light ’Til Dawn. The album New Moon Daughter won a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album in 1997, while Loverly received the same award in 2009. Over her career, Wilson had four Grammy nominations.
The singer also took part in recordings by Steve Coleman, Greg Osby, Luther Vandross, Regina Carter, Angélique Kidjo, John Legend and Ravi Coltrane. She was one of the lead vocalists on Wynton Marsalis’s oratorio Blood on the Fields, which became the first jazz composition to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1997. In 2022, the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts named her a Jazz Master, one of the country’s highest honors for jazz musicians.
