Raul Midon - Synthesis - International Music Network

June 21, 2008Music ReviewFaith From the South, and a One-Man Band TooBy STEPHEN HOLDENIf I had to choose a single word to describe the mystique of the singer Lizz Wright, it would be steadfast.Ms. Wright, who headlined a double bill with the equally talented singer-songwriter Raul Midón at the concerthall of the New York Society for Ethical Culture on Thursday evening, is a minister’s daughter from a smalltown in rural Georgia. Her recent album, “The Orchard” (Verve), is a self-conscious return-to-roots record,although Ms. Wright has never ventured far from those roots.In her last record, “Dreaming Wide Awake,” Ms. Wright’s voice brought a concentrated, churchlike gravity tothe folk-jazz musical settings of the material from here, there and everywhere. From its title to its gatefoldportrait of Ms. Wright, regally costumed, standing by a cypress tree in the middle of a swamp, “The Orchard” isa celebration of the South, fecundity and connection with nature. It expresses a proud and profoundly reassuringsense of knowing where you come from.For this JVC Jazz Festival concert Ms. Wright was accompanied by a five-member band that included ToshiReagon (on rhythm guitar and backup vocals) with whom she collaborated on 6 of the 12 songs from “TheOrchard.”All might be called contemporary spirituals. Although they describe exaltation and suffering in relationships,there is little separation in feeling between the secular and the sacred. Faith, of one kind or another, is heremotional anchor.Even songs by others, like the Ike and Tina Turner classic “I Idolize You,” are transmuted into somethingmajestic. In Ms. Wright’s rendition on Thursday, it metamorphosed from a wild, flailing, call-and-responserocker with a sassy girl-group chorus into a slow, deep blues shuffle, which Ms. Wright’s dark, penetrating altoinfused with a mystical belief.The Led Zeppelin ballad “Thank You” and the Patsy Cline song “Strange” underwent similar transformations.Ms. Wright’s integrity is synonymous with her utter lack of vocal adornment. Her voice, luminous and smokyand perfectly pitched, is one of the most wondrous rhythm-and-blues instruments of our time; it needs noornamentation to stand on a pedestal by itself.Mr. Midón, a one-man band who turns a guitar into an orchestra and his voice into a chorus, is just asaccomplished and as spiritually connected but in a sunnier way. And in his sensational set he suggested a threewayfusion of Stevie Wonder, Bobby McFerrin and José Feliciano.Although only 42, Mr. Midón has the stage personality of an unreconstructed hippie. His lilting, continuouslymelodious songs, taken from two albums, “A World Within a World” and “State of Mind,” expressed a liveand-let-liveCaribbean perspective. (Mr. Midón, however, is from New Mexico.)