Feb 3, 2025 10:49 PM
The Essence of Emily
In the April 1982 issue of People magazine, under the heading “Lookout: A Guide To The Up and Coming,” jazz…
Singer-songwriter Lizz Wright’s next album, Grace, is scheduled for release in September.
(Photo: Jesse Kitt)Do you have a favorite period in Fitzgerald’s extensive career?
I’m in love with a moment of diversion that she had in her career, when she recorded Sunshine Of Your Love [in 1968]. She went off the path. That album has some really playful moments that edge toward rock. To me, that album conveyed that she loved music and the times. She sings “Hey Jude” and kills it [laughs]. I learned a lot about her when she stepped out of her perfect mold that got built around her.
I also just discovered that she wrote a song. I didn’t know that Ella Fitzgerald had written any songs. Danilo Pérez, who’s leading the “Jazz 100” tour on which I’ve guested a few times, said that he’s found this song called “It’s Up To Me And You” that Ella wrote about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. after he was assassinated. I looked online and found the same thing—nothing to hint that there were any other writers of that song but her. I’m still trying to find out more about it. The song is very beautiful, simple and heartfelt.
So going back to your question, I’m in love with these moments of diversion, when she stepped away from being this jazz diva with these incredible singing chops who brought so much life to jazz, to being a woman who wanted to kick her shoes off and sing “Hey Jude,” and being a lyricist who wanted to write something for Dr. King and encourage us to carry his dream forward.
Talk a bit about your forthcoming disc, Grace. I read that Joe Henry produced it.
It’s coming out Sept. 15. Grace is me standing in this Americana world but from a genuine place. I had so much fun making this record with Joe Henry. We’ve been friends for about 10 years; we’re finally working together.
This is the first time the title track is not something that I wrote. But I knew that I wanted to call the album Grace and I knew that I wanted to write something called “Grace.” But when I heard Rose Cousins’ song “Grace,” I just wept. The song wasn’t even out yet; Joe had just finished working on her record [Natural Conclusion]. Joe played [the song] for me and I was just taken aback. I couldn’t even talk for a while. It was a very deep experience.
The group of songs on Grace and how we recorded them is like a soundtrack and a response to a movie about what’s happening right now. If all of this [sociopolitical upheaval] could be a movie and we could say, “Yay! It’s over,” Grace would be the soundtrack and the title song would be what’s playing when the movie credits roll.
Going back to Fitzgerald, what’s the takeaway you want the audience to have about you and about her artistry?
Ella was one of those jazz musicians who gave people something that was directly nourishing. The sense of joy always comes around when she’s celebrated or talked about. Joy is so integral to her music. So I want to tap into that. It’s very easy for me to get very heady and stressed out thinking about the jazz chops that are associated with her. If I make sure that my resolve is [to express] joy, then I got it right.
There are several ways to getting it right, but joy has to be on the other side of the equation because it’s not a celebration of Ella if it’s not joyful and not full of form and spontaneity and the ability to communicate to the present.
(On May 16, Lizz Wright and other performers—including Bettye LaVette, Deva Mahal, William Bell, Southside Johnny and the Alvin Ailey dance company—will pay tribute to Billie Holiday with a special concert at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. For more info on that show, click here. For more info on Wright and her tour schedule, visit her website.) DB
“She said, ‘A lot of people are going to try and stop you,’” Sheryl Bailey recalls of the advice she received from jazz guitarist Emily Remler (1957–’90). “‘They’re going to say you slept with somebody, you’re a dyke, you’re this and that and the other. Don’t listen to them, and just keep playing.’”
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