Cassandra Wilson, the two-time Grammy Award-winning jazz singer, songwriter and producer dubbed America’s best singer by Time magazine in 2001, has died. She was 70. Wilson passed away peacefully at home in her native Jackson, Mississippi, surrounded by family, close friends and her manager, on Tuesday morning. Hinds County Coroner Jeramiah Howard confirmed her death. A cause of death was not immediately revealed.
“It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Cassandra Wilson, the Grammy Award-winning and legendary jazz artist,” her manager said in a statement to jazz radio station WBGO. “Cassandra Wilson transitioned peacefully at home, surrounded by family, close friends, and her manager.”
Born December 4, 1955 in Jackson to musician Herman B. Fowlkes and music teacher Mary Fowlkes, Wilson showed an early love of music, listening to Motown, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. She began piano lessons at 6, played clarinet in marching bands and performed at coffeehouses while studying at Millsaps College and Jackson State University. In the early 1980s she mentored under jazz greats in New Orleans before moving to New York City, where she joined saxophonist Steve Coleman’s influential M-Base Collective, an experimental group of young musicians that also included Greg Osby and Geri Allen.
Her career took a defining leap with her 1993 Blue Note debut, Blue Light ‘Til Dawn, which blended blues, folk and R&B into contemporary jazz while transforming songs by Robert Johnson, Van Morrison and Joni Mitchell. She followed with New Moon Daughter, which earned her first Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance in 1997, and continued her eclectic approach across albums including Traveling Miles, a tribute to Miles Davis, Belly of the Sun, Glamoured and Silver Pony. Her 2008 collection Loverly brought her a second Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album.
In 2015 Wilson gave a special concert at the Apollo Theater to commemorate the 100th birthday of Billie Holiday and released Coming Forth by Day, an homage to the jazz legend. In 2022 she was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, one of the highest honors awarded to jazz musicians in the United States.
Tributes poured in from across the music world. Jon Batiste wrote on Instagram: “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.”
Jackson Mayor John Horhn called Wilson “an extraordinary native daughter” whose work carried “the sound, spirit and history of Mississippi” wherever her music reached.
Cassandra Wilson is survived by her family.