One of America’s premier jazz singers, Cassandra Wilson, has died, aged just 70.
Her manager Robert Torre broke the news to the New Jersey radio station WBGO yesterday that Wilson “transitioned peacefully at home, surrounded by family, close friends, and her manager.” He did not mention a cause of death.
A two-time Grammy winner, Wilson came from blues-based jazz, but her work touched upon many other genres, including folk, pop, country and R&B.
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Wilson was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and was something of a musical prodigy, playing piano at 6, guitar by 12 and singing professionally in her late teens. Moving to New York, she joined Steve Coleman’s M-Base Collective and eventually became its main vocalist.
She released her solo debut album Point Of View in 1986, which included her own original compositions and versions of Miles Davis’ Blue In Green and I Wished On The Moon, which was made famous by Billie Holiday. Subsequent albums explored jazz funk (1990’s Jumpworld) and acoustic music (Blue Light til Dawn and New Moon Daughter, from 1992 and 1995 respectively). “I continue to choose the path I take musically,” she explained to the New York Times in 1994. “And it’s not motivated by becoming famous or having a lot of money, or any other pop motivation.”
Her first Grammy came for her 1997 album New Moon Daughter. Twelve years later she repeated the triumph in the Best Vocal Jazz album category for Loverly. Her final album, 2015’s Coming Forth By Day, was an explicit homage to Billie Holiday and around this time Wilson gave a special concert at Harlem Apollo to commemorate what would have been the 100th birthday of the iconic singer.
A number of tributes have come in for Wilson in the past 24 hours. In an Instagram post, the bandleader and producer Jon Batiste said: “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… Her Mississippi heritage was always present in everything no matter how expansive her artistry evolved.”
Meanwhile, the mayor of her hometown, John Horhn, has said that 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. Her work had rare depth of character and a profound understanding of how music moves people, tells stories and connects generations.”
