Cassandra Wilson, Jazz Singer With Smoky Voice Rooted in Blues, Dies at 70

Cassandra Wilson, the jazz singer who carried Mississippi's blues not as a relic but as a living tongue, has died at 70. For five decades, her low, unhurried voice refused the ornamental in favor of the essential, walking through melody the way a person walks through familiar land. She stood at the crossing between blues and jazz and held that ground with quiet authority, showing that where you come from need not be a wound to heal but a well to draw from. Her passing closes a particular chapter in American music — one written in restraint, depth, and the refusal of easy beauty.