| Freedom & Surrender | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | September 4, 2015 | |||
| Recorded | n.d. | |||
| Studio | The Village Studios and Strange Cargo, Los Angeles, CA | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Label | Concord | |||
| Producer | Larry Klein | |||
| Lizz Wright chronology | ||||
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Freedom & Surrender is the fifth album by American singer Lizz Wright. It was her sole album for Concord Records and released on September 4, 2015. [1] [2]
Larry Klein produced the album, who brought guitarist Dean Parks and Vinnie Colaiuta on drums as part of a small band, which consistently backs Wright throughout this recording. Keyboardist (and composer) Kenny Banks worked with Wright since her debut album Salt.
"Initially supposed to be a disc of mostly cover-songs, centered on themes of 'the circuitous dance of love'", most of the songs finally were written by Wright and Klein with David Batteau, two with Jesse Harris, and another with J.D. Souther, "Right Where You Are", which features a duet by Wright with Gregory Porter. Till Brönner plays flugelhorn on Nick Drake's "River Man". The second and more unfamiliar pop song Wright covers, "To Love Somebody" by the Bee Gees, "has some gospel happening in it". [3] "Freedom" and "Surrender", the first and the closing track on the album were penned by long-time collaborator Toshi Reagon.
Metascore gave the album an overall score of 75/100, based on five "generally favorable" reviews. [4] Mojo found it "unequivocally [...] her best album yet." [4] Looking back at her previous work, Nate Chinen writes in the New York Times, [5] that "her poise, it seemed, came with a higher purpose." With this album "Ms. Wright has found a new sensual register as an artist," and cited a line from the song "The New Game": "Ain't no shame shifting gears." Chinen described the album's sound as "slicker and punchier than Ms. Wright's previous standard, with an ace studio band," and prefers the songs by Toshi Reagon as "most evocative" and some others over "River Man", that would "verge[] on soothing schmaltz." Ann Powers from NPR Music however picked Wright's version of the Nick Drake classic for Songs We Love, also recognizing the whole album as "very romantic, spiritually inquisitive." [6] [7] Andy Kellman closes his review on Allmusic stating "It's doubtful that Wright and her creative partners could have more effectively synthesized her past work with her current outlook." [8]
Production
Jesse Harris is an American singer-songwriter, producer, and guitarist. He has worked with Norah Jones, Melody Gardot, Madeleine Peyroux, and Lizz Wright.
Toshi Reagon is an American musician of folk, blues, gospel, rock and funk, as well as a composer, curator, and producer.
Elizabeth LaCharla Wright professionally known as Lizz Wright, is an American jazz and gospel singer.
Salt is the first album by singer and composer Lizz Wright, released in 2003 on Verve Records. The album reached No. 2 on the Billboard Top Contemporary Jazz chart and No. 4 on the Billboard Top Jazz Albums chart.
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Fellowship is the fourth studio album by an American singer Lizz Wright, which was released on 28 September 2010 on Verve Forecast. Guest performances on the album include Meshell Ndegeocello, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Joan as Policewoman and Angélique Kidjo. The album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Jazz Album chart, and has sold 17,000 copies in the United States as of August 2015.
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