American jazz singer and songwriter Cassandra Wilson has died in her hometown of Jackson, Mississippi, aged 70.
The two-time Grammy winning vocalist was named TIME magazine’s “America’s Best Singer” in 2001 and was best known for her distinctive and genre-bending contralto. She redefined the boundaries of traditional blues-jazz and folk sounds, and worked across various genres including pop, country, and R&B.
“It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Cassandra Wilson, the Grammy Award-winning and legendary jazz artist,” her manager Robert Torre wrote in a statement (via jazz radio station WBGO). “Cassandra Wilson transitioned peacefully at home, surrounded by family, close friends, and her manager. Her family and close friends respectfully ask for privacy during this difficult time as they grieve her loss.”
No cause of death was disclosed.
Jackson Mayor John Horhn also released statement: “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. She built a remarkable career rooted in jazz, blues, gospel, folk and the many traditions that shape our state’s musical identity.”
He added: “Her work had rare depth of character and a profound understanding of how music moves people, tells stories and connects generations.”
As Jon Batiste put it in a eulogy yesterday, Wilson sounded like the South.
“She had an unmistakable vocal tone, phrasing and her approach of weaving folkloric, R&B and diasporic music together with experimental and popular genres had a major impact on me,” Batiste added.
Wilson gained critical acclaim in 1988 for her third album ‘Blue Skies’ and later signed to Blue Note Records in the early 90s, achieving breakthrough success with albums like ‘Blue Light ‘Til Dawn’ (1993) and 1996’s ‘New Moon Daughter’ – the latter of which won the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance. She received her second Grammy in 2009 for her album ‘Loverly’, crowned Best Jazz Vocal Album.
Throughout her solo career, she also contributed to albums by Steve Coleman, Greg Obsy and two of The Roots’ records, ‘Do you Want More?!!!??!’ and ‘Illadelph Halflife’, and recorded with the likes of Luther Vandross, Regina Carter, Angelique Kidjo, John Legend, Ravi Coltrane, and the Count Basie Orchestra. She was also a major voice in Wynton Marsalis’ oratorio ‘Blood on the Fields’,which became the first jazz work to win a Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1997.
In 2015, Wilson gave a special concert at the famed Apollo Theater to commemorate the 100th birthday of blues singer Billie Holiday. That same year, she released her last studio album, ‘Coming Forth By Day’, an homage to Holiday.
She then formed a supergroup called Dopamine in 2020, alongside Elvis Costello, DJ Premier, T-Bone Burnett and Nathaniel Rateliff.
In 2022, Wilson received the National Endowment For The Arts Jazz Master Fellowship, one of the highest honours awarded to jazz musicians in the US.
RIP Cassandra Wilson 1955 – 2026