REVIEW Esperanza Spalding Turns Davies Hall Into Her Livingroom

Tuesday October 12, 2010

From The Examiner

Esperanza Spalding: turning Davies Symphony Hall into her livingroom
By Jamie Freedman

Esperanza Spalding is a woman of confident comfort. Everything about her and her music is inviting. Presented by SFJAZZ, Spalding performed to a nearly sold out Davies Symphony Hall Sunday night. Even though she didn’t once speak to the audience, except to introduce her band, she invited us in and created a relaxed musical space to sit back and let the music wash over us.

Accompanied by string trio, Spalding entered Davies stage, turned on a floor lamp, took off her jacket, sat in an armchair, took off her shoes and poured herself a tall glass of red wine. With her natural hair, bare feet and pantsuit, Spalding invited us in to relax with her and her music. Her confidence in her abilities and in herself is apparent and soothing. Then she busted into 90 minutes of mostly scat-vocal non-hooky jazz. The music just washed over us.

Spalding is a double threat at 25. I found myself wondering if I liked her better as a bass player or a singer; I was able to make no decision. Her voice is light and floats up and down and all around the scales easily. For a second we heard a few lines of Portuguese and then it was gone. We’ll have to reach back or perhaps also forward in her career to get more of that language that sits so well with Spalding’s voice. Right now, or at least at this concert, most of what we heard was scat (a la Bobby McFerrin). Even at this early point in her career, her music is constantly moving. I first heard her open for Dianne Reeves with Stanford Lively Arts three years ago, she was definitely someone to watch.

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

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

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