{"id":5742,"date":"2016-04-13T16:38:29","date_gmt":"2016-04-13T16:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.artinfo.com\/blunotes\/?p=5742"},"modified":"2016-04-13T16:38:29","modified_gmt":"2016-04-13T16:38:29","slug":"when-esperanza-met-emily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2016\/04\/13\/when-esperanza-met-emily\/","title":{"rendered":"When Esperanza Met Emily"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Esperanza_Spalding\"<\/a>
Esperanza Spalding showing two sides of herself PHOTO: HOLLY ANDRES<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n 
\nA few facts were striking after Esperanza Spalding<\/strong> took the stage of Brooklyn\u2019s BRIC House in early March. Gone was the bassist and singer\u2019s soft cloud of an Afro, tamed now into long braids. Oversized glasses largely obscured her lovely features. She wore crown that looked as if stolen from a cool kid\u2019s birthday party. She seemed in perpetual motion, pausing only to bear down on a particularly challenging line on her fretless electric bass. Her music, now centered on a plugged-in trio, sounded louder and more assertive than at any point in her decade-long career.
\nThis was the album release celebration for \u201cEmily\u2019s D+Evolution<\/strong>\u201d (Concord Records), Ms. Spalding\u2019s boldest leap yet. During \u201cGood Lava<\/a>,\u201d between power chords, she sang, \u201cSee this pretty girl\/ Watch this pretty girl flow.\u201d
\nAudiences have been doing largely that ever since Ms. Spalding’s unexpected 2011 Best New Artist Grammy Award left fans of the rapper Drake and the popster Justin Bieber incredulous. Then, Ms. Spalding was known mostly as a jazz instrumentalist (she\u2019s still that too, working regularly in an acoustic trio with pianist Geri Allen and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington). Some heralded her Grammy as jazz\u2019s triumph, which to some degree it was.
\nIf Ms. Spalding, 31, has since walked a gilded path\u2014performing at the Academy Awards and at the Obama White House; working closely with jazz royalty such as pianist Herbie Hancock and her closest mentor, saxophonist Wayne Shorter\u2014she seems now to have found her own road.
\nShe credits the Emily of her album\u2019s title\u2014her middle name, which most people called her while growing up in Portland, Ore. She\u2019s not so much channeling her inner child, she says, but rediscovering \u201cthe innocent passion I once felt for poetry and dance and loud sounds\u201d through a character that is more so channeling her. The project calls for creative staging (she enlisted theatrical director Will Weigler) and has developing gradually throughout her adopted hometown of New York City. She tried out some songs two years ago in performance at the 92nd<\/sup> Street Y. She debuted the track \u201cOne\u201d during a 2015 episode of \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live\u201d taped at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. She\u2019ll tinker further with her formula on April 14 at Harlem\u2019s Apollo Theater.
\nMy interview with her in The Wall Street Journal is here<\/a>. Here are two excerpts:
\nIs Emily a younger Esperanza Spalding?<\/em>
\nWell, Emily is my middle name, what people used to call me. But this isn\u2019t a story about me as a child. She\u2019s really an invitation to remember, or not to forget, the motives behind what intrigued or delighted us before we knew what we were and weren\u2019t. When I was much younger, my guiding light came from the passions I had for poetry and dance and performance. I remember that as pure sensation. That sensation, the curiosity it produces, moves me forward now. I like to use the expression, \u201cUsing the best of the past as a flashlight to the future.\u201d That\u2019s a quote from Wayne [Shorter]. I\u2019ve been talking to Wayne about this project since it first came to mind.
\nAs a musician, what\u2019s the main difference between improvising in a jazz trio and the way you create and perform for this project?<\/em>
\nPlaying jazz involves sort of abandoning your individuality and contributing to this weird thing that’s being co-created and arranged in real time. It\u2019s a magical experience that sometimes involves using the structure of a composition as a container, or working without even that structure. I will never lose my love for that. This project is different because it\u2019s the same songs each time, and we\u2019ve really worked out arrangements. So we\u2019re looking for new discoveries about Emily\u2019s story, and new ways to express the ideas behind her story and its subtext.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  A few facts were striking after Esperanza Spalding took the stage of Brooklyn\u2019s BRIC House in early March. Gone was the bassist and singer\u2019s soft cloud of an Afro, tamed now into long braids. Oversized glasses largely obscured her lovely features. She wore crown that looked as if stolen from a cool kid\u2019s birthday … <\/p>\n

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