Esperanza Spalding

Although firmly established as a bandleader who can both sing and play bass to a high standard Spalding has also done some of her best work to date either as an accompanist or equal partner in a number of different projects. Chief among are saxophonist Joe Lovano’s Us Five ensemble and ACS, a trio that featured the late Geri Allen and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington.

In the former Spalding showed how well she could read and interpret challenging scores in a small group with a big sound provided by the presence of two drummers while the latter underlined how sensitive and responsive Spalding could be in a setting in which creative exchange between the players was of paramount importance.

Her rich tone, sharp time-keeping, melodic phrasing and rhythmic drive are impressive, and she, in the manner of the legendary Slam Stewart, can also play and scat vocal lines at the same time. Then again, these qualities, along with her songwriting were what made Spalding a very significant new arrival in the jazz world in the millennium.

Her auspicious 2006 debut Junjo announced a talent that was rooted in modernism but also open to a wide range of influences, notably the Afro-Brazilian rhythms of one of her sources of inspiration, Milton Nascimento, and the subsequent recordings, such as Chamber Music Society and Radio Music Society saw Spalding further broaden her stylistic palette.

These were very eclectic affairs that also revealed her interest in western pop icons such as Joni Mitchell and Stevie Wonder as well as jazz legends like Wayne Shorter, and to a certain extent Spalding became a notable example of an improvising musician who could combine credibility and accessibility. Her triumph in the 2011 Best New Artist category of the Grammy awards, where she fought off competition from teen idol Justin Bieber, further boosted her profile.

These achievements were all the more remarkable given that Spalding was raised by a single mother in relatively modest circumstances in Portland, Oregon, and had her fair share of pressures to endure when she took up scholarships at institutions such as Portland State University and Berklee College Of Music. However, she excelled at both, becoming a faculty member at the latter, before launching her recording career in earnest.

Although she might shy away from terms such as ‘concept album’ her most recent projects, 2016’s Emily’s D+Evolution and Exposure have been her most adventurous to date. The former presented Spalding’s alter ego as a young woman asserting her independence through a series of songs that leaned towards rock, pop and soul, while the latter was a ‘Live to facebook’ session, written, performed and mixed in a studio streamed to the social media platform in the space of 77 hours, during which she and her band were joined by guests such as Robert Glasper and Lalah Hathaway. The spontaneity of the circumstances produced impressive material.

Given her considerable discography it is tempting to think that Spalding is a veteran but she is still only 33 years-old and her rapid growth to date suggests that the best is yet to come.