Thursday, September 3, 2026

A02138 - Cassandra Wilson, Grammy Award Winning African American Jazz Singer, Songwriter and Producer

8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Portrait of American jazz vocalist Cassandra Wilson, New York, New York, 1990s. (Photo by Anthony Barboza/Getty Images)
Cassandra Wilson in New York in the 1990s

8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Cassandra Wilson
Wilson in 1987
Wilson in 1987
Background information
BornDecember 4, 1955
Jackson, Mississippi, U.S.
DiedSeptember 1, 2026 (aged 70)
Jackson, Mississippi, U.S.
EducationMillsaps College;
Jackson State University
GenresJazz
Occupations
  • Singer
  • songwriter
  • producer
Years active1985–2026
Labels
Spouses
Websitecassandrawilson.com
Children1 son
FatherHerman Fowlkes Jr.

8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Cassandra Wilson (born December 4, 1955, Jackson, Mississippi, U.S.—died September 2, 2026, Jackson) was an American musician whose recordings combined such musical genres as jazz, rap, and hip-hop. She performed jazz standards, folk songs, Delta blues, and pop classics as well as many original numbers that defied categorization.

Wilson began writing songs in her youth after learning basic guitar chords from her jazz-guitarist father and absorbing the folk music of Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, and Judy Collins. She graduated from Jackson (Mississippi) State University with a degree in mass communications in 1981 and moved to New York City the following year. There she joined M-Base, a cooperative organization of adventurous musicians who experimented in jazz, hip-hop, rap, and funk. She was a vocalist on several albums by M-Base members. Her first two solo albums, Point of View (1986) and Days Aweigh (1987), were heavily experimental, featuring psychedelic lyrics, electric instruments, and funk and reggae rhythms. Her third album, Blue Skies (1988), was more traditional; a collection of mostly jazz standards, it became her first popular success.

Her record company, Polygram, wanted her to record more standards, but Wilson had other ideas. Leaving Polygram for Blue Note Records, she continued writing her own songs and began reinterpreting works by such diverse artists as Mitchell, Van Morrison, Neil Young, and Delta blues legends Robert Johnson and Son House. She eschewed conventional song settings in favor of distinctive accompaniment, featuring percussion, guitar, and the occasional instrument not traditionally associated with jazz—harmonica, banjo, accordion, violin, or marimba. The results were commercial and musical successes. Her Blue Light ’til Dawn (1993) sold more than 400,000 copies. New Moon Daughter (1995) sold more than 650,000 copies and earned Wilson the 1997 Grammy Award for best jazz vocal performance. She also toured as a featured vocalist in Wynton Marsalis’s epic cantata about slavery, Blood on the Fields, in 1997.

Two years later Wilson released the album Traveling Miles, a tribute to jazz great Miles Davis. For the album she wrote six new songs inspired by his work and invented lyrics to three of his originals. Wilson’s later albums included Belly of the Sun (2002); Thunderbird (2006); Loverly (2008), which won the Grammy for best jazz vocal album; Closer to You: The Pop Side (2009); and Coming Forth by Day (2015).

8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Cassandra Wilson (December 4, 1955 – September 1, 2026) was an American jazz singer, songwriter and producer from Jackson, Mississippi.[1] She was one of the most successful female jazz singers and has been described by critic Gary Giddins[2] as "a singer blessed with an unmistakable timbre and attack [who has] expanded the playing field" by incorporating blues, country, and folk music into her work. She won numerous awards, including two Grammys,[3] and was named "America's Best Singer" by Time magazine in 2001.[4]

Early life and career

Wilson was the third and youngest child of Herman Fowlkes Jr., a guitarist, bassist, and music teacher,[5] and Mary McDaniel, an elementary school teacher who earned her PhD in education. Her ancestry included Fon, Yoruba, Irish, and Welsh. Between her mother's love for Motown and her father's dedication to jazz, Wilson's parents sparked her early interest in music.[6]

Her earliest formal musical education consisted of classical lessons; she studied piano from the age of six to thirteen and played clarinet in her middle school concert and marching bands.[6] When she was tired of this training, she asked her father to teach her the guitar. Instead, he gave her a lesson in self-reliance, suggesting she study Mel Bay method books. Wilson explored guitar on her own, developing what she has described as an "intuitive" approach. During this time, she began writing her own songs, adopting a folk style. She also appeared in musical theater productions, including The Wizard of Oz as Dorothy, crossing racial lines in a recently desegregated school system.

Wilson attended Millsaps College and Jackson State University. She graduated with a degree in mass communications. Outside of the classroom, she spent her nights working with R&B, funk, and pop cover bands, also singing in local coffeehouses.[7] The Black Arts Music Society, founded by John Reese and Alvin Fielder, provided her with her first opportunities to perform bebop.[7] In 2007, Wilson received her PhD in Arts from Millsaps College.

In 1981, she moved to New Orleans to take up a position as assistant public affairs director for the local television station, WDSU. She did not stay long. Working with mentors who included elder statesmen Earl Turbinton,[7] Alvin Batiste, and Ellis Marsalis, Wilson found encouragement to seriously pursue jazz performance and moved to New York City the following year.[7]

Musical association with M-Base

In New York, Wilson's focus turned towards improvisation. Heavily influenced by singers Abbey Lincoln and Betty Carter, she fine-tuned her vocal phrasing and scat while studying ear training with trombonist Grachan Moncur III. Frequenting jam sessions under the tutelage of pianist Sadik Hakim, a Charlie Parker alumnus, she met alto saxophonist Steve Coleman, who encouraged her to look beyond the standard jazz repertoire in favor of developing original material. She would become the vocalist and one of the founding members of the M-Base collective in which Coleman was the leading figure, a stylistic outgrowth of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and Black Artists Group (BAG), that re-imagined the grooves of funk and soul within the context of traditional and avant-garde jazz. Peter Watrous in an article for The New York Times states:

Wilson at the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, New York City, 2007

The M-Base group in Brooklyn, working with both jazz and pop forms, makes music that at first sounds like funk from the 1970s. Like the music played by Mr. Marsalis (and his brother Wynton) the music made by M-Base – Steve Coleman, with Greg Osby, Cassandra Wilson and Geri Allen – is, at its best, filled with subtle ideas working behind the mask of popular music. In Mr. Coleman's group a singer is supported by an electric bass, guitar, drums and electric keyboards, a shiny musical mix that has familiar rock and funk references; yet, because of all its rhythmic and metric manipulations, sounds new.[8]

Although the voice – typically treated as the focal point of any arrangement in which it is included – was not an obvious choice for M-Base's complex textures or harmonically elaborated melodies, Wilson wove herself into the fabric of these settings with wordless improv and lyrics. She can be heard on Coleman's debut as a leader, Motherland Pulse (1985),[7] then as member of his "Five Elements" on On the Edge of Tomorrow (1986), World Expansion (1986), Sine Die (1987), and on M-Base Collective's sole recording as a large ensemble Anatomy of a Groove (1992).

At the same time, Wilson toured with avant-garde trio New Air, featuring alto saxophonist Henry Threadgill, and recorded Air Show No. 1 (1987) in Italy. A decade her senior and an AACM member, Threadgill has been lauded as a composer for his ability to transcend stylistic boundaries, a trait he and Wilson shared.

Solo career

Wilson at Ottawa Bluesfest, 2008

Like fellow M-Base artists, Wilson signed to the Munich-based, independent label JMT. She released her first recording as a leader, Point of View, in 1986.[7] Like the majority of her JMT albums that followed, originals by Wilson in keeping with M-Base dominated these sessions; she would also record material by and co-written with Coleman, Jean-Paul Bourelly, and James Weidman, as well as a few standards. Her throaty contralto gradually emerges over the course of these recordings, making its way to the foreground. She developed a remarkable ability to stretch and bend pitches, elongate syllables, manipulate tone and timbre from dusky to hollow.[9]

While these recordings established her as a serious musician, Wilson received her first broad critical acclaim for the album of standards recorded in the middle of this period, Blue Skies (1988).[7] Her signing with Blue Note Records in 1993 marked a crucial turning point in her career and a major breakthrough to audiences beyond jazz, with albums selling in the hundreds of thousands of copies.

Beginning with Blue Light 'til Dawn (1993), her repertoire moved towards a broad synthesis of blues, pop, jazz, world music, and country. Although she continued to perform originals and standards, she adopted songs as diverse as Robert Johnson's "Come On in My Kitchen", Joni Mitchell's "Black Crow", The Monkees' "Last Train to Clarksville", and Hank Williams's "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry".

Wilson's 1996 album New Moon Daughter won the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance.[3] In 1997, she recorded and toured as a featured vocalist with Wynton Marsalis's Pulitzer Prize-winning composition, Blood on the Fields.

Miles Davis was one of Wilson's greatest influences. In 1989, Wilson performed as the opening act for Davis at the JVC Jazz Festival in Chicago. In 1999, she produced Traveling Miles as a tribute to Davis. The album developed from a series of jazz concerts that she had performed at Lincoln Center in November 1997 in Davis's honor, and includes three selections based on Davis's own compositions, from which Wilson adapted the original themes.

Personal life and death

Wilson was married to Anthony Wilson from 1981 to 1983.[10]

She had a son, Jeris, born in the late 1980s. Her song "Out Loud (Jeris' Blues)" on the 1991 album She Who Weeps is dedicated to him. For many years, Wilson and her son lived in New York City's Sugar Hill, in an apartment that had once belonged to Count Basie, Lena Horne, and the boxer Joe Louis.[11]

From 2000 to 2003, Wilson was married to actor Isaach de Bankolé, who directed her in the concert film Traveling Miles: Cassandra Wilson (2000).[12]

Wilson and her mother were members of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.[13][14]

Wilson died in Jackson, Mississippi, on September 1, 2026, at the age of 70.[15]

Awards and honors

Discography

As leader

Compilations

As guest

With Steve Coleman

With Wynton Marsalis

With Greg Osby

With The Roots

With others

References

  1.  Collar, Matt. "Cassandra Wilson Biography". AllMusic. Retrieved November 23, 2009.
  2.  Giddins, Gary. (2000). Visions of Jazz: The First Century. Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-513241-0, p. 643.
  3.  "All GRAMMY Awards and Nominations for Cassandra Wilson". Grammy.com. July 28, 2023. Retrieved July 28, 2023.
  4.  Crouch, Stanley (July 9, 2001). "Cassandra Wilson". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved July 28, 2023.
  5.  Litweiler, John. "Cassandra Wilson". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved September 3, 2026.
  6.  Leland, John (March 7, 2002). "GOING HOME WITH: Cassandra Wilson; Jazz Diva Follows Sound of Her Roots". The New York Times.
  7.  Colin Larkin, ed. (1995). The Guinness Who's Who of Jazz (Second ed.). Guinness Publishing. pp. 495/6. ISBN 0-85112-674-X.
  8.  Watrous, Peter (December 31, 1989). "POP VIEW: Private Codes Enliven Jazz". The New York Times.
  9.  Priestley, Brian, Digby Fairweather, Ian Carr. Jazz, The Rough Guide, Second Edition March 2000.
  10.  Jones, Charisse (September 29, 1994). "In the Studio with: Cassandra Wilson; Singing a Song of the South". The New York Times.
  11.  Lewis, John (November 22, 2010). "The Big Interview Cassandra Wilson". The Metro.
  12.  De Bankolé, Isaach (2000), Traveling Miles: Cassandra Wilson (Documentary, Music), Cassandra Wilson, Regina Carter, Isaach De Bankolé, retrieved July 28, 2023
  13.  "Cassandra Wilson, Mississippi Musician and Singer of Jazz, Blues, and Popular Music". Mswritersandmusicians.com. Retrieved February 7, 2023.
  14.  "Famous Alpha Kappa Alpha Members - Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority - Pi Nu Omega Chapter". Pinuomegaaka.org. Retrieved February 7, 2023.
  15.  Wade, Maggie; Staff, WLBT (September 2, 2026). "Jackson-born Grammy winner Cassandra Wilson dies at 70". WLBT. Retrieved September 2, 2026.
  16.  "Cassandra Wilson". Mississippi Blues Trail. Retrieved September 15, 2016.
  17.  Tamarkin, Jeff (March 26, 2012). "Cassandra Wilson Signs to eOne Music". JazzTimes. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved May 23, 2012.
  18.  Tamarkin, Jeff (November 20, 2014). "Legacy Recordings Signs Cassandra Wilson". jazztimes.com. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved December 14, 2014.

888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Cassandra Wilson, Star Jazz Singer, Dies at 70 - The New York Times

8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)