The Guardian ·
Cassandra Wilson obituary
American jazz singer and songwriter who was inspired by the Delta blues and gospel sounds of her Mississippi childhood
Cassandra Wilson, the double Grammy-winning jazz vocalist and songwriter who has died aged 70, was described in 2001 by Time magazine as “America’s best singer”. Superlatives accompanied Wilson throughout her career; her vocal skills supported them.
Wilson’s ancestry was West African and European, and the Delta blues and gospel sounds she heard in her Mississippi childhood affected her deeply – but so did the guitar harmonies her father taught her, and the early instruction in classical piano she received from her music-teacher mother. Both her parents were Miles Davis and Motown admirers, too.
I first heard Wilson live at a small arts festival at London’s Half Moon theatre in 1989. Some of the music press was touting the then 33-year-old as a “jazz singer for the 90s”. But Wilson had been audible on the jazz cognoscenti’s radar for at least four years before that – on her assured contributions to the progressive postbop albums by the US saxophonist Steve Coleman, which spawned the edgy, genre-fluid, new-jazz movement dubbed M-Base. Also there was her own sharply contrasting collection of American songbook classics (including Polka Dots and Moonbeams, and Shall We Dance?) on the acclaimed 1988 release Blue Skies.
