About Esperanza Spalding
Esperanza Spalding
Barndiva
231 Center Street
Both shows sold out! Thank you for your support!
Date: Saturday, May 30
Time: 7 pm. & 9 p.m. (7 pm show sold out)
Tickets: $40
“The coolest person we’ve ever had on the show. Beautiful!”
– David Letterman
Jazz is in desperate need of artists who can appeal to young audiences unfamiliar with its glorious history. Last year it became clear that jazz’s hopes had been answered in the person of 24-year-old Esperanza Spalding, a masterly bassist, alluring singer, and savvy bandleader who looks like she stepped out of a VH1 video.
The release of her second, self-named album on HeadsUp triggered the kind of visibility rarely accorded a jazz musician, including a round of network television performances on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and “The Late Show with David Letterman.” With a beguiling blend of Brazilian melodies, Afro-Caribbean grooves, post-bop harmonies and soulfully breezy vocals, Spalding combines the imaginative flights of a serious improviser with the stage presence and musical availability of a pop star.
Born and raised in Portland, Ore., Spalding was a precociously curious musician who started playing violin and oboe in the Chamber Music Society of Oregon at six, eventually becoming the ensemble’s concertmaster. As a teenager, she discovered the double bass, which led her away from European classical music and toward blues, funk, hip-hop, jazz and Latin American genres. Working on the club scene in Portland, she started writing her own pop songs, and began honing the ability to sing and play simultaneously. Her prodigious talent quickly attracted attention.
At 20, Spalding became the youngest musician ever hired as an instructor at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, a faculty gig she landed after graduating from the school in 2005. She had created a serious buzz almost immediately upon enrolling. With her infectious bandstand charisma, huge sound and singular sense of time, Spalding quickly became a player sought out by her peers. Before long veteran artists came calling, including pianist Michel Camilo, bassist Stanley Clarke, guitarist Pat Metheny, and saxophonist Joe Lovano.
Her palette of influences stretches across the Americas, a sweeping musical agenda announced by the opening and closing tracks of her eponymous HeadsUp album. She enters crooning a ravishing version of “Ponta de Areia” in Portuguese, a tune introduced to the jazz world by Wayne Shorter on his landmark 1974 collaboration with Milton Nascimento, “Native Dancer.” She contributes several memorable original pieces, but no tune better illustrates her insistence on finding her own path than “Cuerpo Y Alma,” her 5/4 translation of the standard “Body and Soul” into lilting Spanish.
Her outstanding band lined up for the Saturday night gig at Barndiva’s “backyard” stage includes Otis Brown, drums, Leo Genovese on piano, and Ricardo Vogt playing guitar.
Hear Esperanza Spalding on Piano Jazz
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