An album to raise you up
The strongest element of Nearness is the more gospel influenced material.
But you could argue that on everything she does whether singing classic standards or spirituals that side of things is always there with Lizz Wright.
Produced by long-time guitarist Chris Bruce, Nearness thrives on quiet moments, hanging phrases, a certain unforced momentousness that begins right from the first notes.
The might as well be title track ‘The Nearness of You’ comes first. A song that goes back to 1937 and Hoagy Carmichael and Ned Washington; Carmichael was one of the great American songwriters, responsible for tunes such as ‘Stardust’ and ‘Georgia on My Mind’. Wright, 46, who first burst through with the remarkable Salt is from the southern American state of Georgia.
Originally written for a film project that was never made it eventually found its way into the mainstream through the Glenn Miller Orchestra, with vocalist Ray Eberle, whose 1940 recording became the first major hit version.
The lyric is unusually intimate and understated. The song gradually moved from popular music into the jazz repertoire during the 1940s and 1950s. Sarah Vaughan recorded it as early as 1949, and her performances show how naturally the tune lends itself to sophisticated jazz phrasing. Charlie Parker also recorded it in 1951 with Woody Herman’s orchestra.
So you begin here with a very old song but in a certain sense the album goes a lot further back given a certain strong biblical undertow and this album as a whole has a timelessness to it.
Regular readers will know that I reckon the Wright and Banks treatment of ‘Amazing Grace’ – a hymn Wright has interpreted before – is our track of the year. Nearness too is in the marlbank list of top vocals albums of the year to date right at the top.
Betty Carter I started thinking of a bit during my time listening to the record earlier today. That’s not surprising when you come to ‘Jazz Ain’t Nothing But Soul’ the Norman Mapp song that Carter did in 1960 on The Modern Sound of Betty Carter. Banks’ accompaniment is quite strict and the emphatic side of his style makes me think of Hank Jones a bit here and in other places on the album when I start listening to piano more.
There’s a joyousness to ‘Hold On’ aka ‘Hold On Just a Little While Longer’ a classic traditional African American spiritual focused on endurance, faith and perseverance. The song served as a work song and a spiritual anchor during slavery and the Civil Rights Movement, encouraging believers to press forward through trials. I know the song from Bobby McFerrin and the Kuumba Singers’ version which is stunning.
Banks comes into his own – and again I am thinking of Hank Jones a bit – on Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein’s ‘All the Things You Are’. I go off to hear HJ’s own version captured live one time for a while.
Jesse Greer’s cuddle and woo late-1920s song ‘Just You, Just Me’ with finger clicks is lovely. It was first recorded by Ukulele Ike and Johnny Hartman did a version in the 1950s. But it’s impossible not to think of Nat King Cole when you hear this lovely version. It was on After Midnight (Capitol, 1957).
Wright and Banks include their own song the romantic ‘Hold Me’ that fits in well especially coming after ‘Just You, Just Me’ which is in the smoochier portion of the album.
Banks switches to the organ on the biggest holy roller number which is terrific, the claplong feast that is Clara Ward’s ‘How I Got Over’. We are deep in Mahalia Jackson teritory here – one of the greatest gospel singers ever. Banks and Wright do her proud.
‘Deep River’ also here is beautiful – I think of Marian Anderson’s version as the song was a signature staple of that great classical singer’s concert repertoire.
Nearness also includes a new stunning a cappella version of ‘Circling’ the Wright/Bruce/Toshi Reagon/Lynne Earls/Justin Hicks co-write that figured on Shadow a few years ago. That version is above. It is a song that on that album tapped the folkier side of Wright’s artistry that you get more on albums of this incredible singer’s like The Orchard. Here it is in another realm – where she loses herself once again “between the rhythm and the reason.”
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