Cassandra Wilson, the Grammy-winning jazz singer whose genre-defying approach expanded the possibilities of contemporary vocal jazz, has died aged 70.

Wilson died at her home in Jackson, Mississippi, surrounded by family and close friends. A cause of death has yet to be announced.

Her voice was a well-known one in Australia and not just through her recordings. Wilson performed as a major headlining act at the 2013 Melbourne International Jazz Festival and performing at the Sydney Opera House. Earlier in her touring career she visited the Adelaide Cabaret Festival.

Cassandra Wilson performing at the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival in Tompkins Square Park, New York City in 2007. Photo WikiMedia Commons

Born in in 1955, Wilson grew up in a musical household. Her father, Herman B. Fowlkes, was a musician and her mother, Mary, a teacher. She began piano lessons at six, learned guitar at 12 and played clarinet in marching bands. While studying at Millsaps College and Jackson State University, she performed in coffeehouses and cover bands before establishing herself as a vocalist in the 1970s.

Her musical education ranged widely, taking in Motown, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk alongside the blues, folk and popular music of the American South. In the early 1980s she spent time in New Orleans before moving to New York, where she became closely associated with saxophonist Steve Coleman and the influential M-Base Collective.

Wilson’s first solo album, Point of View, appeared in 1986, but her career was transformed by her signing with Blue Note Records and the release of Blue Light ’Til Dawn in 1993. The album established a distinctive new approach to jazz singing, setting standards and contemporary songs alongside blues, country and folk influences and foregrounding Wilson’s earthy, highly individual voice.

She became celebrated for the subtlety with which she inhabited a song and for her broad taste in music, which saw her interpret songs by Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Cyndi Lauper.

Her 1995 album New Moon Daughter earned Wilson her first Grammy, for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, while Loverly won Best Jazz Vocal Album in 2009. Her collaborators included Wynton Marsalis, Elvis Costello, The Roots and Ravi Coltrane.

In 2001, Time magazine named Wilson “America’s best singer”, recognition of an artist whose influence extended well beyond jazz. In 2022 she was named an NEA Jazz Master, one of the highest honours in American jazz.

Her Coming Forth by Day (2015) was a tribute to Billie Holiday, released to mark the centenary of Holiday’s birth.