Dubbed America's best singer by Time magazine in 2001, Wilson was best known for her genre-bending voice, which expanded the boundaries of traditional blues-based jazz and worked effortlessly across folk, pop, R&B, country and beyond. At the heart of all her work was her idiosyncratic contralto, a soulful sound distinctly tied to her roots.
She died in her native Jackson, Mississippi on Tuesday, the Hinds County Coroner Jeramiah Howard confirmed.
"It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Cassandra Wilson, the Grammy Award-winning and legendary jazz artist. Cassandra Wilson transitioned peacefully at home, surrounded by family, close friends, and her manager," her manager Robert Torre said in a statement.
Born and raised in Jackson to musician Herman B. Fowlkes and teacher Mary Fowlkes, Wilson showed an early love of music listening to Motown, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk.
In the early '80s, she was mentored under jazz greats in New Orleans before moving to New York and joining Steve Coleman's M-Base Collective - eventually becoming its main vocalist.
Her instantly recognisable voice earned her four Grammy nominations and two wins for best jazz vocal album. Those were in 1997 for New Moon Daughter and 2009 for Loverly.
In 2015, it was Wilson who gave a special concert at the famed Apollo Theatre to commemorate the 100th birthday of Billie Holiday, the legendary American jazz vocalist. That same year, Wilson released her last album, Coming Forth by Day, an homage to Holiday.
In 2022, Wilson was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, one of the highest honours awarded to jazz musicians in the United States.
"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," Jon Batiste said in his tribute to Wilson on Instagram.
"Her Mississippi heritage was always present in everything no matter how expansive her artistry evolved," he wrote in the caption of a clip showing them together on Brazilian TV in 2009.
"She was one of the first people to take me on tour around the world, the great Cassandra Wilson."
12°C