1. Coming Home
2. My Heart
3. I Idolize You
4. Hey Mann
5. Another Angel
6. When I Fall
7. Leave Me Standing Alone
8. Speak Your Heart
9. This Is
10. Song For Mia
11. Thank You
12. Strange
Lizz Wright - Vocals
Chris Bruce, Oren Bloedow - Acoustic guitar,
electric guitar, bass
Toshi Reagon - Acoustic guitar, backing vocals
Glenn Patscha - Keyboards, backing vocals
Kenny Banks - Piano
Patrick Warren - Keyboards
Larry Campbell - Pedal steel guitar, mandolin
John Convertino - Drums, percussion, vibes
Ben Perowsky - Drums
Larry Eagle - Drums, percussion
Joey Burns - Acoustic guitar, bass, quarto,
baritone guitar, cello
Catherine Russell, Josette Newsam, Marc Anthony
Thompson - Backing vocals
The Southside Horns: Jacob Valenzuela, Martin
Wenk - Trumpets
When
I first heard Lizz Wright - as a guest on
Joe Sample's 2002 album The Pecan Tree
- I was pleased to welcome a new jazz vocalist.
With her own first CD (Salt), Lizz
Wright reinforced my hopes for her in the
jazz field. Yet her next album (Dreaming
Wide Awake) seemed to take her in a different
direction - away from jazz and closer to soul
or folk music. She sounded more like a singer-songwriter
and less like a jazz vocalist.
This
new album continues in the same direction.
Lizz helped to write two-thirds of the 12
songs and they all mix influences from gospel,
blues, soul, folk and country but seldom jazz.
The predominant rhythm on many tracks is an
unsubtle thudding backbeat instead of a more
subtle jazz rhythm Perhaps Lizz Wright was
always a soul singer rather than a jazz performer
but I find it slightly disappointing. At least
Lizz still has a superb voice and she uses
it to get plenty of emotion out of the songs.
And if she is classifiable as a soul singer,
she shows up by contrast how mediocre some
other vocalists are - like the overrated Amy
Winehouse.
The
album certainly fulfils Lizz Wright's aim
of going back to her roots in the music she
heard as a child, growing up in rural Georgia.
Her own compositions (mostly collaborating
with Toshi Reagon) have a personal conviction
which is attractive. And the four other songs
represent some of those early influences,
such as Ike and Tina Turner in Ike's rhythm-and-bluesy
I Idolize You, and the gospel intensity
of Sweet Honey in the Rock's Hey Mann.
There is a strong country-music feel on several
tracks, with country-style guitar on Hey
Mann and When I Fall - and Lizz
apparently salutes country singer Patsy Cline
on the final track, Strange. I say
"apparently" because that track is blank on
my copy of the CD!
This
album is not what I hoped for, but I shall
probably have to resign myself to the fact
that Lizz Wright is not the jazz performer
I thought she was. Nevertheless, she is still
a remarkable singer who deserves stardom whatever
path she takes.
Tony
Augarde
CD Reviews
Verve
Forecast 0602517564510
