R.I.P. Cassandra Wilson

The distinct smoky and deep voice of Grammy Award-winning jazz singer Cassandra Wilson has been silenced with her passing on Tuesday morning at age 70, with no other details provided, per the Hinds County, MS coroner. Time magazine in 2001, had declared her as ”America’s Best Singer.”

The influential vocalist was born (and would pass away) in Jackson, MS on December 4, 1955 (as Cassandra Fowlkes), to a jazz musician and music teacher father, and public school teacher mother. Their love of jazz and Motown, exposed their youngest of three to music, inspiring her as she grew.

Studying piano and playing clarinet in grade school, she switched to self-taught guitar and began writing songs.

While in college (eventually earning a PhD in Arts), she spent evening singing in coffeehouses and spending time with musicians, moving to New Orleans and then to NYC, to immerse herself in the music, helping found the Brooklyn-based collective M-Base, and would go on to share the stage with the likes of Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis.

Her solo debut album was 1986’s Point of View, later signing to Blue Note Records in 1993 with her breakthrough being with the release of the Grammy-winning New Moon Daughter from 1996 (that even contained a Monkees cover), which would combine jazz, with pop, blues, country, folk and world music.

Wilson was named an NEA Jazz Master in 2022, one of the highest honors in jazz. She was most inspired by Nina Simone, and in turn, inspired modern artists like India.Arie, Norah Jones, and others with her vocal delivery and blending of genres. She was also featured on a Bob Belden jazz songbook album of Prince covers, singing a unique version of “When Doves Cry.”

A third album of jazz standards, 2008’s Loverly, won Wilson her second Grammy, and her fourteenth and final studio album, was 2015’s Coming Forth by Day, a tribute to the legendary Billie Holiday, in celebration of what would have been her 100^th birthday.