Esperanza Spalding
Chamber Music Society
Heads Up
Apologies to Dorothy Parker, but what fresh hell is this?
Is it jazz? Yes. Classical? Indeed. Pop? Very. And fresh as hell.
25-year old Spalding, bassist and vocalist extraordinaire, leaves simple genre classification in the dust. From scatting over chamber music (“Knowledge of Good and Evil”), to a beautiful hat tip to Nina Simone with “Wild Is The Wind”, the third album from Oregon’s Spalding might remind one of the poetry and structure of Joni Mitchell or the wistful, bluesy style of Rickie Lee Jones, but Spalding is her own muse, creating a new fabric of sound from threads of many different musical clothes, while never losing her sense of musical intelligence. She’s played with legends such as Stanley Clarke and Pat Metheny, as well as performing at the 2009 Nobel Prize Ceremony in Oslo at the request of President Obama. Chamber Music Society is a beautiful creation that defies easy characterization, but rewards with musical bliss. Improvisational yet structured, classical music that can swing, and a touch of Brazilian bossa. What’s not to like?
Heads Up: http://headsup.com
