Jazz vocalist Lizz Wright all set for Joburg return

The sun’s golden rays are long, defying the lingering chill of a dying southern winter when jazz vocalist Lizz Wright finally joins the Zoom line. We’re counting down to her return to Joburg for the 25th anniversary instalment of the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz at end-September.

The 44-year-old singer is bunched up on a chair in a Los Angeles hotel room. It’s about 9am there, and she clutches a grande cup of coffee. She cuts a much cosier figure compared with our previous interview. Then, she was in denim dungarees and distracted herself with gardening. She giggles at the memories. Those muddy pastimes have since found an elegant entrepreneurial expression. Wright has taken up another life as a part-time chef cooking her fresh produce to lucky diners at Carver 47, a homely restaurant she and her partner, Monica Haslip, opened in Chicago.

Running a restaurant has been good for her musical career too.

“The mechanisms of a restaurant have helped me think structurally about my work in the business of music,” she says. The benefit of this shift in her thinking saw her recent records released under her own label, Blues & Greens.

“There’s a lot of moving parts in taking care of a restaurant. To start, there’s fresh produce, real estate and people to care about. It’s the same when you’re an independent artist. You have to keep track of a lot of parts, make decisions and lead your own team. I am blessed to have an amazing group of people too.”

One of these is guitarist and producer Chris Bruce, a creative springboard and collaborator on her latest album, Shadow.

Just perfect

“He and I have worked on so many projects together, but he had never produced for me. So just before the pandemic hit, we started thinking through the project. Much of its energy reflects the mood of that time. It also has the spirit of friendship and collaboration that gave people the ability to go through the separation and uncertainty of that time too.”

Among her notable collaborators is Angelique Kidjo and Meshell Ndegeocello who appear on separate tunes. Bassist and serial collaborator, Ndegeocello was “a surprise edition on the record. She basically heard the song, Your Love, she took it without me knowing; went away to work on it and returned with a finished track…. It was just perfect. I had to have it.”

In this way, the music is a celebration of friendship too. This balances the dark shadow of people lost during the time many of the songs were being made.

Our conversation takes place just as she’s preparing to leave LA for Chicago, then prepare for her trip to Joburg. She gazes into the middle distance, as though to study a floating thought.

“You know, just a few years ago, we were all locked and isolated … it has made me appreciate audiences.”

I remind her of Joburg jazz lovers singing along to every song during her last gig. She giggles. “That really surprised me. But I loved it.”

Wright has put out four albums of new music since then. She says all these will somehow find their way onto the repertoire in Sandton. “I am sure everyone will get to hear their favourite music.”