Singers celebrate the spirit of the South
Lizz Wright and José James bring their latest projects to Bay Area shows
Like many people, Lizz Wright found herself feeling disoriented and unsettled in the closing months of the 2016 presidential election, “as if someone was changing all the sets on stage,” she says. “A lot of the political rhetoric had gotten a little interesting.”
Long based in New York City, the Georgia-born vocalist decided the time was ripe to revisit her Southern roots and reground her music in essentials. While she established herself as a gifted songwriter on her five previous albums, Wright ended up recording “Grace” (Concord Jazz), a project exploring songs by composers who powerfully evoke the South’s feel and spirit.
“I had a need to return to the sense of place,” says Wright, who performs Friday at Kuumbwa Jazz Center and Saturday and Sunday at the SFJazz Center. “I wanted to sing where I’m from and feel the soul of the South, today. Looking at what was going on in the country, it was almost like standing up in the audience in a musical and singing a response.”
With her deep, liquidamber tone and frictionless phrasing, Wright can turn any song into a spiritually charged hymn. But on “Grace,” she taps directly into the gospel songbook, interpreting Thomas A. Dorsey’s classic “Singing in My Soul” and Bob Dylan’s anthem from his overlooked born-again phase,
“Every Grain of Sand.”
Rather than responding to the nation’s current climate of divisiveness with anger, panic or cynicism, Wright fortifies herself, and us, for the journey. Sometimes the songs she and producer Joe Henry selected reference the region directly, like a glowingly languorous arrangement of Allen Toussaint’s “Southern Nights” and a sensuous take on the Frank PerkinsMitchell Parish standard “Stars Fell on Alabama.”
“As the election happened, I was also inspired by the documentary ‘What Happened, Miss Simone?’ where Nina Simone says in an interview that it’s an artist’s duty to respond to the present,” Wright says. “‘Grace’ is not only where I find myself, it’s how I want to move through these
times.”
The South also figures prominently in jazz crooner José James’ upcoming Blue Note album celebrating the great, reclusive Southern singer-songwriter Bill Withers. Growing up in Minneapolis, James saw his hometown as a place to escape rather than celebrate. (“No one talks about Bob Dylan in Minnesota,” he says.) He sees hip-hop’s cultural triumph as leading to a new appreciation of local roots in popular culture.
“People like Kanye and Jay-Z really repping Marcy Projects, Outkast and Janelle Monáe repping Atlanta, and Kendrick and Beyoncé saying this is where I’m from and where I’m celebrating paved the way to where we are now,” says James, who performs
tonight at Kuumbwa, Friday at the SFJazz Center and two shows Saturday at Cafe Stritch, co-presented by San Jose Jazz and Universal Grammar.
Withers, who turns 80 on July 4, had a brilliant two-decade run from the mid-1960s to the mid-’80s that produced nine albums and enduring hits such as “Grandma’s Hands,” “Lean on Me,” “Ain’t No Sunshine” and “Just the Two of Us.” He withdrew from the music scene in 1985 and has largely shunned the spotlight, speaking but not performing at his 2015 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Before proceeding with the project James wanted to get Withers’ blessing. He connected with Withers via Blue Note president Don Was for a dinner
at Musso & Frank Grill in Hollywood.
“He was exactly how you think he is, but way smarter,” James says. “Within five minutes, I was thinking, thank God he went into music. He had an engineering degree from nine years in the Navy and could have done anything. He really considers himself first and foremost a songwriter, and he gave me freedom to interpret his music my way.”
James built the project from the band up, assembling the all-star cast of players who are touring with him, including pianist-keyboardist James Francies, guitarist Brad Allen Williams, the sensational drummer Nate Smith and bassist Ben Williams, winner of the 2009 Thelonious Monk International
Jazz Bass Competition and founding member of Pat Metheny’s Grammy Awardwinning Unity Band.
“Everyone in the band is from the South,” James says. “Bill is obviously a Southern writer. If I hired just funk or blues or church guys, we couldn’t move to the jazz places. But if I hired jazz guys who don’t like playing in the pocket, it would turn into unrecognizable versions of ‘Sunshine’ and ‘Use Me.’ ”
Wright didn’t include any Withers songs on “Grace,” but she shares James’ reverence for the songwriter. “He’s the only person who really gave musical life to my relationship with my grandmother,” she says. “A lot of people in the African-American community are raised by grandmothers, and that relationship is a special bond and circle. He possesses a depth of soulfulness that’s really unmatched.”