Track of the year so far: Lizz Wright and Kenny Banks Sr – Amazing Grace
HYMN AND HERS: The second time a track from Nearness lands in the track of the week spot. It is also top track of 2026 I reckon. To the tune of ‘New Britain’ from 1835 when it was so paired by William Walker in The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, the words of this for the ages John Newton hymn go further back to the Eighteenth Century. It’s a remarkable performance vocally by the great jazz and gospel influenced American singer Lizz Wright, who first burst on to a wider consciousness with Salt more than 20 years ago. The daughter of a church minister herself, this musical pairing with the authoritative pianist Banks Sr of the Cascade United Methodist Church, Atlanta – down there in Lizz’s home state of Georgia – makes perfect sense and pays artistic dividends over and over again the more you listen
When we’ve been over there, over there, for ten thousand, for ten thousand, years
Part of The way Lizz sings John Newton’s words adding bits of repetition for effect With Further Wonderful Elaboration in the Coda that’s Like a Vocal Cadenza in Miniature that Gives Way Naturally to Banks’ sturdy timing and authority inconspicuously but crucially Enough as you’ll Hear when listening to Tiny Segments again of the Treatment as Will Probably be inevitable as You begin to Live with the riches of the treatment.
Bright shining, bright shining, as, shining like the sun
Hey, We will have no, we will have no, less days to sing, sing the Lord’s sweet praise
Than when we’ve first begun
Soon I Will Be Done is an earlier track of the week on marlbank
More on Nearness from which both tracks are drawn
Nearness (Blues & Greens/Candid, 25 September) moves between spirituals and standards – including ‘All The Things You Are’, ‘Deep River’ and the title track – framed by a stripped-back approach that places voice and piano/organ interplay at the centre. In contrast to the fuller arrangements of Shadow (2024), the focus here is on clarity and restraint.
