This month, Oberlin College’s Finney Chapel stage morphed into a living room - Esperanza Spalding’s living room.
As the capacity crowd eagerly awaited the arrival of the newly crowned Grammy Award winner for Best New Artist, the room went dark and silent for what seemed like an eternity. Then, to the tune of hushed string music by Spalding’s supremely talented backing musicians - her “Chamber Music Society” - a small lamp was lit, revealing the singer/bass player/composer slouched on an oversized chair, barefoot and sipping a glass of wine with her eyes closed.
So much for a grand entrance.
But when you’re the popular music world’s new “it” artist - appearing on popular talk shows and topping newspaper headlines by day, and performing in historic concert halls by night - a quiet, unassuming entrance like this is more than refreshing.
To mainstream America, Spalding is an overnight sensation: a relative unknown who stole the music industry’s most prized award - a Grammy - from the assumed Best New Artist winner (and tween pop superstar) Justin Bieber. The only thing the Biebs and Spalding have in common, though, is their trendsetting hairstyles - Bieber’s forward swept, expertly tossled bangs, and Spalding’s wildly cool sky-high head of curls.
While teen heartthrob Bieber croons music to make young girls scream (“You are my love, you are my heart, and we will never, ever, ever be apart”), the classically trained Spalding, 26, borrows elements from classical music, jazz improvisation, scat singing, R&B, show tunes, and Brazilian pop, and composes songs that make indie hipsters, jazz students and their elders swoon.
In jazz circles, however, Spalding is no newcomer. Born in Portland, Oregon, in 1984, Spalding discovered her love of music at an early age. When she was four, she happened to catch cellist Yo-Yo Ma performing on an episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. She was so inspired, she picked up a violin and taught herself to play - so well, in fact, that she joined the Chamber Music Society of Oregon at age five and played with them for a decade. At 15, Spalding discovered the bass and decided to concentrate on her new instrument of choice. She studied music at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, and, at age 20, became the school’s youngest ever faculty member.
In 2008, she released a solo album, the critically acclaimed Esperanza - and gained a cult following, and some friends in high places. President Obama invited Spalding to perform at the Nobel Prize Ceremony in Norway, and the Nobel Peace Prize Concert. Her latest album, Chamber Music Society, released in 2010, is currently topping the Billboard Contemporary Jazz chart. Continued on page two...
