Lizz
Wright (vocals); Kenny Banks Jr (keys); Ben Zwerin (bass); Ivan Edwards
(drums).
I’d seen Lizz Wright a couple of times previous; once at Sage Two in Gateshead and once at the London Jazz Festival a couple of years before the pandemic so I was really looking forward to this one. When the lights went down and pianist Kenny Banks Jr shuffled across the stage I turned to Steve to say “She’s really let herself go since I last saw her.” And Steve responded “That’s not her”. It was some relief.
She turned up two beats
later in denim jacket and camouflage skirt so we couldn’t see her from the
waist down “I didn’t know what to wear for a gig this early in the day,” she
explained. They opened with a minimalist Nearness
of You, a sultry exercise in perfect timing and weighting, before the
others in the band arrived on stage. Same
Sweet Feeling was a blues holler with an interpolation of a gospel request
to Walk With Me, Lord.
A guitar, effects-laden,
introduction preceded the Neil Young song Old
Man. A melancholic paean for lost times and youthful pessimism before one
of my favourites of hers, I’m Confessin’ (That
I Love You) and I was sold. A reading of Don’t Tell me to Stop wrung every scrap of tragedy from the lyric.
There was more gospel and
soul in the protest songs Why I Believe and
Coming Home introduced by Kenny Banks
Jr’s organ playing and a steady, one note drum beat.
The first encore was some
boogaloo funk in New Game which
showed the power in her singing before the lights went down for a stark, heart
breaking, hairs raising-on-the-back-of–the-neck delivery of Sandy Denny’s Who Knows Where the Time Goes? with a
bass solo from Ben Zwerin over Banks’ comfort blanket of organ.
Just lovely. Dave Sayer
1 comment :
Doesn't look much like denim and camouflage to me!
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