Lizz Wright

The 28-year old Georgia native flexes her emotional range on The
Orchard (which dropped in late February), her third and best disc to
date. Producer Craig Street concocts the sort of pop-jazz-soul-gospel
stew he fashioned to break Cassandra Wilson into the mainstream, and
Wright provides a similarly breathy, atmospheric vocal. Left field
covers of Led Zeppelin (a graceful "Thank You") and Patsy Cline (a
soulfully dumbstruck "Strange") are stuck at the end, prefaced by a
half-dozen tunes Wright co-wrote with guitarist-singer Toshi Reagon,
including the seething "Leave Me Standing Alone" and the gorgeous,
crooning baptismal, "Song For Mia." There’s also the nurturing maturity
of "Speak Your Heart" and a sexy blues, torch-song rendition of Ike
Turner’s "I Idolize You" that reportedly slays in concert. Wright has
always had the rep of being better onstage than in the studio. Now that
she’s stepped it up a notch on record, who knows what this shift from
the clubs to the midsized Varsity venue portends.