Lizz Wright

Tonight on Fridays Live, SFJAZZ presents “a skilled [vocal] alchemist who refuses to let one genre have the final word”, Lizz Wright. With an instrument described by The New York Times as a “sumptuously earthy, which commands strict and often spine-tingling attention,” the Georgia native is a singular singer/songwriter whose music has embraced soul and R&B, steeped in the gospel of her childhood. Her newest venture is the establishment of her own label, Blues & Greens Records, and its debut release, 2022’s live date Holding Space.

A vocalist of substance more devoted to song than to image.
Chicago Tribune

ABOUT LIZZ WRIGHT
With a luxuriant voice redolent of the red soil that sustained her growing up in Georgia, Lizz Wright sanctifies every song she sings. While the highly-acclaimed vocalist first gained attention delivering Swing Era standards associated with Billie Holiday, she’s continued in recent years as a singer/songwriter whose music eludes definition. For this special 2023-24 Season Opening Week concert, Wright will be performing music from her forthcoming new album Shadows, which blends together jazz, blues, R&B, Indian-rooted strings and house music. The performance will also include a wide range of cover songs from Cole Porter to Candi Staton and more.

A quartet of albums on the Verve label, beginning with 2003’s Salt and concluding with the gospel-infused Fellowship from 2010, established Wright as a major artist whose reach wasn’t bound by the limits of any one genre. Since the release of Fellowship, Wright has been continually working in varying settings with a number of sublimely talented women including drummer Terri Lyne Carrington’s GRAMMY-winning Mosaic Project and a touring tribute to Miriam Makeba, Abbey Lincoln and Odetta featuring fellow vocalists Dianne Reeves and Angelique Kidjo.

After Wright’s GRAMMY-nominated 2015 Concord Records album Freedom & Surrender and the 2017 follow-up Grace, her newest venture is the establishment of her own label, Blues & Greens Records, and its debut release, 2022’s live date Holding Space. In describing the inimitable voice of Lizz Wright, JazzTimes enthuses: “(her) soul-jazz lilt – soft as peach fuzz yet iron-sturdy – is the musical equivalent of a protective hug from a keenly empathetic friend.”