INTERVIEW: Esperanza Spalding - The Intimate Balance - IMN

INTERVIEW: Esperanza Spalding - The Intimate Balance

Tuesday September 21, 2010

(From All About Jazz)

Esperanza Spalding: The Intimate Balance
By Esther Berlanga-Ryan

Fans of classical music and jazz have argued about music for years. If Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Duke Ellington had ever met, they may have looked at each other in awe—right before debating about bars and notes and solos… and, perhaps, the music would have been flowing just as easy as words. The time when classically trained musicians looked down on their improvising peers has been over for a long time, but certain misconceptions still prevail and, luckily, there are musicians ready to gently open those eyes that still remain closed.

If you can think of a place of solitude, where beautiful music is created, and feelings are exposed in the form of melodies, then Esperanza Spalding’s Chamber Music Society (Concord Records, 2010) would find the perfect location to exist. There, the bassist/singer/songwriter has found a shelter for both classical and jazz music, combined with the same fragility with which a poet recites his verses.

There is something about the delicate sound of Spalding’s voice that almost reflects that of a violin—enhanced in the way she plays the upright bass. The 25 year-old prodigy (at the age of 20, she was already a faculty member at the Berklee College of Music) digs deep into her young soul to visit the roots of the music that was first responsible for her creative being, and has found a balance between jazz and chamber music on an album that is both enchanting and intimate.

To read the interview click here

Radio Song (clip)	1:01	Esperanza Spalding
Black Gold	5:17	Esperanza Spalding

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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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