Lizz Wright

Lizz Wright synthesizes jazz, gospel, folk, blues, and soul with a full contralto voice that soothes whether the subject is romance, faith, loss, or everyday reflection. The singer/songwriter came up in the church in rural Georgia and was deeply involved with choirs before she made her commercial debut as a featured vocalist on Joe Sample's The Pecan Tree. Salt (2003), a remarkably accomplished first album on Verve, put her in the upper reaches of Billboard's contemporary jazz chart. Following a three-album run with Verve Forecast that concluded with the gospel-oriented Fellowship (2010), a number two entry on the main jazz chart, Wright recorded for Concord, where she issued Freedom & Surrender (2015) and Grace (2017). She then went independent and started her own Blues & Greens label the next decade with Holding Space (2022), her first live recording, trailed by Shadow (2024), one of her bluesier studio efforts.