LIZZ WRIGHT & KENNY BANKS SR.
The singer Lizz Wright — who owns one of the most spellbinding voices of her generation, regardless of genre —remembers the first time she heard her dear pianist Kenny Banks Sr. perform. It was at the Atlanta Jazz Festival, where Banks was onstage with the vocalist Audrey Shakir, a regional legend. Wright was a freshman at Georgia State University; the daughter of a minister, she was raised on the music of the Black American church. Banks was already a respected player on the Atlanta scene who was working toward his master’s in jazz studies from GSU.
At a jam session at the original Churchill Grounds in Atlanta, Wright sat in while Banks was on the keys and sang a couple of jazz standards — at the time, the only ones she knew. But the crowd wanted more, so the band settled on “Amazing Grace” off the cuff. “He played it as a blues, and he kind of scared me because I’d never sang like that in my life,” Wright says. “I’d never sung a blues. I’d never felt prayer and longing and lust and confusion at the same time. And the sound came out with all those things.” “It was bananas,” Banks recalls, beaming. “I think that’s why we still have that in our repertoire.”
But what of that voice —that spectacular instrument the New York Times once described as “a smooth, dark alto possessed of qualities you might associate with barrel-aged bourbon or butter-soft leather”? Was it already in place at that formative jam session? “Absolutely. One-hundred percent,” Banks says. “You know when you hear people say, ‘You’ve got that thing’? She always had that thing. She’s just got a presence that commands your attention.”
Thus began a quarter-century-long adventure in which Banks became one of Wright’s most trusted collaborators, appearing on her 2003 major-label debut, Salt, and then on such acclaimed albums as The Orchard, Fellowship, Freedom & Surrender, Grace and Shadow. Now comes Nearness, from Blues & Greens Records and Candid Records, the most thrillingly intimate expression of their kinship yet. The new LP, produced by longtime musical director and esteemed guitarist Chris Bruce, features just Wright and Banks, on piano and organ, traversing 11 jazz standards and spirituals.
Following that first Churchill Grounds jam session, Banks essentially took Wright under his wing, helping her to learn the etiquette around jazz performance, develop her repertoire and even lead a group. Wright aspired to perform within the band rather than out front, to deliver her melodies and improvisations with the same fiery spontaneity as her sidemen. “Kenny was the one who showed me how to relate to a band in a way where you could be respected,” she says. (In recent years, Wright has studied piano with Banks. His lessons, she says, allow her to find passion and enjoyment in practice, “taking joy into the depths of discipline.”)
They bonded quickly and profoundly, on the strength of their shared background in the church — including improvisation-rich testimony services — and their interests in swinging jazz, R&B and other music. In Banks, Wright found the ideal ally, whose personality and approach offered the best kinds of dualities: He was both a hyper-organized, immensely gifted arranger and a bold, wide-open performer who loved to discover new pathways on the spot.
The album title comes from the opener, Hoagy Carmichael’s “The Nearness of You,” one of Wright’s favorite standards. “I’m excited to be able to use that one word to explore concepts of love and closeness that are not often mentioned,” Wright says. “I’m celebrating not just a teacher here, but a great platonic love.”
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