[Dixielandjazz] Who is Grammy Winner Esperanza Spaulding?

[Stephen G Barbone]

She won the Grammy for BEST NEW ARTIST, beating out Justin Bieber and  
Drake. Perhaps not OKOM, and not limited to jazz, she is a jazz  
musician. You go girl!!!



Cheers,

Steve Barbone

www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband



Esperanza Spalding is a petite, precociously gifted 26-year-old  
bassist. Ms. Spalding is also an artist, a bandleader, a vocalist and  
a star attraction, if not always in that order.

Ms. Spalding won best new artist at the 53rd annual Grammy Awards in  
February 2011. She was among the event's major surprises, and the  
first jazz musician to receive the award in decades, if not ever. The  
widely regarded favorites were Justin Bieber, the teen-pop  
juggernaut, and Drake, the slyly melancholy hip-hop star.

Ms. Spalding, who is originally from Portland, Ore., is a charismatic  
whirlwind proudly hailed, for some time, as some kind of vital  
infusion for jazz. She taught herself to play the violin at age 4 and  
joined the Chamber Music Society of Oregon a year later. At 16, she  
switched to the double bass.

She arrived with great reserves of talent and composure, becoming, at  
20, one of the youngest musicians hired to teach at the Berklee  
College of Music, where she had just earned her degree. She released  
an auspicious instrumental debut, “Junjo” on the Ayva label in  
2006, and a vocal follow-up, “Esperanza,” on Heads Up International  
in 2008. The album she released in 2010, also on Heads Up, was  
“Chamber Music Society,” which presented her lissome, light-gauge  
voice in a sparer light, framed by quietly sparkling arrangements.

Ms. Spalding’s relevance has never really been rooted in her output  
as a recording artist. As an authoritative upright bassist who also  
nimbly sings, she has no exact peer or precedent: the particulars of  
her talent are unique. And in the interval between “Esperanza” and  
"Chamber Music Society," she has wowed David Letterman, appeared in a  
Banana Republic ad campaign and performed by request at the White  
House and theNobel Peace Prize ceremony. She was tapped by Prince for  
a tribute at the BET Awards, and then as his opener at Madison Square  
Garden.

Her success is only tangential to jazz, really, even though jazz  
percolates through her music, along with Stevie Wonder-ish soul and  
Brazilian pop and much else besides. Some of her most enthusiastic  
admirers come from the more jazz-literate, bohemian wing of hip-hop.