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Crotchet

Lizz Wright SALT VERVE 589 933-2

 

 

1. Open Your Eyes You Can Fly
2. Salt
3. Afro Blue
4. Soon as I Get home
5. Walk With Me lord
6. Eternity
7. Goodbye
8. Vocalise/End of the Line
9. Fire
10. Blue Rose
11. Lead the Way
12. Silence.

As every track has a different line up in the backing, I have decided not to list them all as it makes the review too large.

With many modern sleeve notes the record companies seem to want to keep any information about their artists to a minimum. VERVE are no exception, the sleeve note is long on photographs and personnel for each track, but tells us nothing about Ms Wright. Perhaps someone at VERVE realised that this could be an error on a debut album, because they added a sticker that says "Debut of a Georgia-born singer/songwriter of astonishing luminosity and soul". For those like me who didn’t know, luminosity means ‘glow’. I start therefore with little information about Lizz Wright but look forward to her music.

The whole of this album is full of competent performances from excellent musicians backing a good new singer, but the selection of tunes is awful. Most of the tunes on this album fill me with a feeling of depression. Does Lizz Wright know any happy tunes? Salt which was written by Lizz Wright, is one of the best tracks, the arrangement is good and well played by the band, but like all the other tracks it left me with a feeling of foreboding.

I would like to hear Lizz Wright deliver an album of songs from the great American songbook with a really swinging rhythm section.

Don Mather

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