Cassandra Wilson, the Grammy-winning American jazz vocalist, died on Wednesday in Jackson, Mississippi, according to her management. She was 70.
“Cassandra Wilson transitioned peacefully at home, surrounded by family, close friends, and her manager,” Robert Torre wrote in a statement, hailing her as a “legendary jazz artist.”
Her management did not disclose the cause of death. According to Torre, Wilson’s close friends and family requested privacy.
Wilson built a three-decade career as a singer-songwriter and producer. She earned widespread praise for her rich and expressive contralto voice.
She won the 1997 Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance for New Moon Daughter. In 2009, she won Best Jazz Vocal Album for Loverly.
Wilson featured prominently in Wynton Marsalis’ 1997 oratorio Blood on the Fields, which made history as the first jazz composition to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Throughout her career, she has collaborated with a wide range of artists, including saxophonists Steve Coleman and Greg Osby, as well as the hip-hop collective The Roots.
“I learned so much from her, and I am so sad she has passed away,” musician Jon Batiste wrote in a tribute on social media.
“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.
“She sounded like the South.”
Backstory…
Wilson built her reputation by refusing to be confined to traditional jazz. Her deep contralto voice became her trademark as she blended jazz, Delta blues, folk, country, pop and R&B into a style that helped reshape contemporary jazz.
Her breakthrough came after joining the M-Base Collective in New York in the 1980s and later signing with Blue Note Records. Her 1993 album Blue Light ’Til Dawn established her as a major jazz vocalist, particularly for her reinterpretations of songs outside the traditional jazz repertoire.
Wilson went on to win two Grammy Awards. She won Best Jazz Vocal Performance for New Moon Daughter in 1997 and Best Jazz Vocal Album for Loverly in 2009. Her influence extended beyond the Grammys, with Time magazine naming her “America’s Best Singer” in 2001.
Her death meanwhile comes just days after the passing of American country music icon, Dolly Parton
Read Also: Popular American Country Music Icon, Dolly Parton Dies @80
