Jazz Legend Cassandra Wilson, Two-Time Grammy Winner, Dies at 70

Cassandra Wilson, a two-time Grammy Award-winning jazz singer, songwriter and producer, died on September 2 at her home in Jackson, Mississippi, at the age of 70. Her longtime manager, Robert Torre, said she passed peacefully surrounded by family, close friends and himself, and asked for privacy while the family grieves.

Critic Gary Giddins described Wilson as a vocalist with an unmistakable timbre who broadened jazz’s scope by integrating blues, country and folk elements. WBGO host Gary Walker, who first met Wilson in 1982, recalled her ambition to test her mettle in the jazz capital and praised her “sultry, smoky voice” across diverse material, from Miles Davis reinterpretations to Bob Dylan songs.

NEA Jazz Master and WBGO staffer Dorthaan Kirk expressed personal loss, noting Wilson’s close relationship with the station and recalling early visits to New York jazz clubs that hinted at her future impact.

Wilson began piano lessons at six, added guitar by twelve, and performed as a vocalist by the mid-1970s. After moving to New York in the early 1980s, she joined saxophonist Steve Coleman’s M-Base Collective before signing with Blue Note Records in 1992. Her 1993 album "Blue Light 'Till Dawn" is credited with expanding the repertoire for modern jazz singers.

Her accolades include two Grammy Awards, the Django d’Or, the Edison Music Award, a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail, and the 2022 NEA Jazz Master Fellowship alongside Stanley Clarke, Billy Hart and Donald Harrison. She also performed a leading role in Wynton Marsalis’s Pulitzer-winning work "Blood on the Fields" and recorded with Legacy, a Sony Music subsidiary.

Wilson was a longtime friend of WBGO and her death has been widely mourned across the jazz community.