Five minutes with Esperanza Spalding (Interview with London's Serious)

Sunday February 19, 2012

from serious.org.uk

Five minutes with Esperanza Spalding in London

Esperanza Spalding’s story is an impressive one. She found her love for music at an early age. By the age of five, she had essentially taught herself to play the violin well enough to land a spot in The Chamber Music Society of Oregon, whom she played with for 10 years. During this time, she also discovered the bass. Suddenly, playing classical music in a community orchestra wasn’t enough for Esperanza. Before long she was a regular on the local club circuit and ,at 16, left high school for good to study music at Portland State University – which made her the youngest bass player in the programme. Three years later, she moved to the opposite coast, to Berklee College of Music, where she had the opportunity to play with Stanley Clarke, Pat Metheny, Patti Austin and Joe Lovano, among others and to become, at 20, the youngest member of the teaching faculty at the college.

Her journey as a solo artist began with the release of her debut album Esperanza in 2008, which went straight to the top Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz chart. The years since have seen her play sell-out shows across the globe, pip Justin Bieber to the post for the Best New Artist award at last year’s Grammys, and gain an ever-increasing pool of fans, among audience members and even the most hard-nosed of critics. We brought her to London last year to play two sell-out shows at the Barbican, with Chamber Music Society – a project that saw her explore the classical influences of her early years. This year’s release Radio Music Society, tips a hat to her 16-year old self, playing blues, funk and hip-hop on the club circuit in Portland, and sees her combine her jazz roots with pop, soul and r&b. If you’ve only seen Esperanza in a concert hall setting before, this is your chance to see the soulstress in a different guise. Don your dancing shoes, and join us at KOKO on Mon 28 May. Tickets are only £25. That’s no too far shy of a week’s worth of coffees. Wouldn’t you agree that this’d be pennies better spent?

Watch what's on

*Radio Music Society Trailer
Esperanza Spalding at the Oscars
Black Gold
Esperanza Spalding at the Nobel Prize Ceremony

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