Cassandra Wilson, the Grammy-winning vocalist known for her deep roots in classic jazz and wide-ranging renditions from blues, folk and country, has died. She was 70.
John Horhn, the mayor of Wilson’s native Jackson, Miss., released a statement saying “Jackson has lost an extraordinary native daughter, and the world has lost a singular musical voice. Cassandra Wilson carried the sound, spirit and history of Mississippi with her wherever her music reached.” The statement did not give a cause of death.
Wilson’s catalog showcased the full breadth of her native Mississippi’s musical heritage, drawing primarily from jazz but spanning every foundational American genre. After attending Jackson State University and Millsaps College, Wilson got a job at a New Orleans television station, which put her in the orbit of local jazz legends Ellis Marsalis and Alvin Batiste, among others. Wilson moved to New York City and joined saxophonist Steve Coleman’s influential M-Base Collective, debuting with her 1986 LP “Point of View.”
Blue Note Records released her breakthrough solo LP, 1993’s “Blue Light ‘Til Dawn,” a mix of originals and covers of work by blues pioneer Robert Johnson and folk singers Van Morrison and Joni Mitchell. The album made her a star beyond sophisticated jazz spheres, with Time magazine once referring to Wilson as “America’s best singer.” 1995’s “New Moon Daughter” won the Grammy for jazz vocal performance (which she would win again in 2009 for “Loverly,” along with two other Grammy nominations).
In 1997, she contributed to Wynton Marsalis’ Pulitzer Prize-winning “Blood on the Fields” album, a harrowing and intimate narrative of slavery and the search for freedom in the U.S. Yet her wide genre interests brought her back to her roots in 2002’s “Belly of the Sun,” with songs by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Jimmy Webb and Robbie Robertson, and into hip-hop on 2006’s sample-heavy “Thunderbird.” Wilson collaborated with John Legend and Ravi Coltrane, and released her last album, the Billie Holiday-rooted “Coming Forth by Day,” in 2015. Wilson earned a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail, and in 2022, Wilson was named an NEA Jazz Master from the National Endowment for the Arts.
“Cassandra Wilson showed the world the richness of Jackson and Mississippi music,” Horhn said in his statement. “Her legacy will continue to be heard in the artists she inspired and the pride she brought to her hometown.”
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