Lizz Wright

Lizz Wright, singer, composer and songwriter, is a world-class star. Her singing, as if in a lens, focuses the entire tradition of American musical culture – from gospel, blues from the Delta, where you can hear echoes of the gloomy history of the South, to jazz, spiritual, soul, various types of folk and pop music.
Like many jazz vocalists, she began her adventure with singing with gospel music performed in a church choir. In the late 1990s, she moved to Atlanta, where she enrolled at Georgia State University; then she studied jazz singing at The New School in New York. During this time, she performed on stage both solo and with the band The Spirit. Her tour with the Billie Holiday program brought her wide recognition. She quickly recorded her debut album (Salt, 2003), on which she was supported by outstanding musicians (Chris Potter, Brian Blade, Danilo Perez), and after two years Dreaming Wide Awake – both albums took top places in the ranking of the “Billboard” magazine. Subsequent albums received excellent reviews – Freedom & Surrender, recorded in 2015 with m.in. Gregory Porter, Till Bronner, Vinnie Colaiuta, and Grace (2017); The artist presented the material from this album in 2018 during a concert at ICE in Krakow.
In 2022, she founded the Blues & Greens Records label, gaining the opportunity to make her own recordings, regardless of the trends promoted by major labels. The first album released under her own brand was Holding Space, which included the artist’s concert recorded in Berlin. Blues & Greens Records’ latest release, Shadow, was released earlier this year to an enthusiastic reception by fans.
Critics, somewhat helpless in the face of the richness of Lizz Wright’s voice, try to describe its properties by resorting to poetic comparisons. Their problem stems from the fact that the artist treats her voice as a sophisticated instrument that she can tune to the style of the music she performs every time.
Her natural register is a deep-set, slightly matte alto. In more dynamic pieces, she expands this range with middle and even higher parts, which creates additional possibilities for expression. The huge potential and scale of the dynamics is impressive – from a barely audible whisper to a scream. She also has a wonderful, almost theatrical diction technique, rare even among female singers, which allows her to extract all possible nuances from the text.
Lizz Wright’s specialty is soulful songs, derived directly from the poetics of blues. They are based on simple melodic formulas and uncomplicated harmony – it is lyrical, muted music, but with great power of expression. The artist introduces strong vibrato, blue notes, melisma in them and always performs them with incredible emotional involvement.
The musicians accompanying Lizz are very reticent. They discreetly emphasize the atmosphere of the songs, enrich their colors and harmony, but their main task is to expose all the vocal qualities of the artist.

– Bogdan Chmura

Composition:
Lizz Wright – vocals
Adam Levy – guitar
Kenny Banks – hammond/piano
Ben Zwerin – bass guitar
Ivan Edwards – drums, percussion