Songstress in early stages of prowess

The buzz that has surrounded the embryonic career of singer Lizz Wright for more than a year is now transforming into actual songs and deeds.

Her debut album, “Salt,” will be released on May 13. And on Monday at the Cerritos Center, she presented a lengthy set serving as a kind of opening act for what is yet to come from a performer whose specific genre has yet to be determined.

In a program that included selections from the album as well as some new material, several aspects of Wright’s musical persona became clear. The first was the extraordinary quality of her voice. At a time when vocal timbre in most jazz-oriented artists has tended toward focused clarity, Wright sang with a sound that was dark and rich, sometimes tending toward a layered thickness. On some tunes, the comparisons that came to mind reached back as far as Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey. On others, she revealed a strikingly mature capacity to balance her big, brassy moments with passages of quiet intimacy.

The second aspect was the continuing process of resolution between Wright’s association with gospel music and her more recent connection with jazz and pop. Her rendering of the traditional spiritual “Walk With Me” was stunning, despite the distractingly inappropriate qualities of the funk-groove accompaniment. But other songs -- the opening “Softly as in a Morning Sunrise,” for example -- lost their momentum when Wright couldn’t seem to find a consistent stylistic interpretation. When she did, as in her own “Salt” and “Blue Rose” (written in collaboration with drummer and producer Brian Blade), it was easy to see her potential for crossover successes.

Wright needs to make adjustments in her live performance to more accurately reflect the well-crafted material on the new album. It’s understandable, given her strong musical association with pianist Kenny Banks, that she would allocate so much solo space for him to stretch out. But too often the results, despite Banks’ skills, tended to undercut Wright’s own musical presence.

Making the transition from the position of a heralded newcomer who has done well in brief showcase appearances to the full-time demands of established musical stardom is never easy. Wright clearly has the skills to make that progression. But to do so she will need more seasoning as a singer, a better thought-out connection between her recordings and her stage presentation, and a performance overview that consistently places her front and center.