GRAMMY winner Esperanza Spalding's 'Radio Music Society' CD pays tribute to musicians who inspired and nurtured her musical success.
By Danny R. Johnson
LOS ANGELES – On her latest Heads Up International/Concord Music Group recording, Radio Music Society, GRAMMY Award-winning jazz bassist and virtuoso musician, Esperanza Spalding, assembles an all-star cast of musicians who helped her show off her impeccable abilities as a revolutionary composer expanding the variety and scope of American music. Throughout the 12 tracks Radio Music Society CD, which was released to the public March 20, 2012, Spalding displays an extraordinary sense of orchestration, an innate gift of conceptualizing melodies, and, of course, an underlying current for transformative improvising.
Every since the 27 year-old Portland, Oregon native stunned the music world by winning the 2011 GRAMMY for Best New Artist for Chamber Music Society (The first time a jazz musician has ever won such honors), Esperanza has been busy touring 100 concert venues the world over this past year with concert appearances and recordings with notable pop, R&B, and jazz artists such as GRAMMY winner Terri Lyne Carrington (drums), GRAMMY winner Joe Lovano (saxophone), National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Jack DeJohnette (drums), GRAMMY winner Herbie Hancock (piano), Lalah Hathaway (vocals), Hip-Hop artist Q-Tip (vocals), Portland based musicians, Janice Scroggins (piano) and Dr. Thara Memory, just to name a few. Ironically, all of the artists listed are featured on the Radio Music Society CD with the exception of Herbie Hancock.
In the midst of all these concert appearances, Spalding found time to get back in the studio to produce and write original music for the CD. She continues her insatiable appetite to push the boundary of how jazz and popular pop music is interpreted and performed.
According to Spalding, Radio Music Society is a celebration of the men and women who have helped cultivate her talents, as well as those who have nurtured her vision and inspiration along the way. The album, she says, “is an opportunity for me to showcase the phenomenal jazz musicians I have worked with and to provide the setting for us to interpret songs together.”
Esperanza and company get busy interpreting the Hold On Me track, with Esperanza leading the vocals accompanied by three trombones, three trumpets, two alto saxophones, two tenor saxophones, one baritone saxophone, and a clarinet. By controlling their volume and bending pitches, the saxophones managed to match their sound to that of the trombones quite remarkably. With Billy Hart on drums, Janice Scroggins on piano and Spalding on acoustic bass – the rhythm section continue the ostinato – above it the horns mark the end of the ostinato’s phrases with sharp, dissonant chords. These chords are extended, containing major triads that clash with prevailing minor tonality. As the horns sustain their last chords, the rhythm comes to a splendid and pulsation conclusion.
The Crowned & Kissed track throws you back to the good ole days of ole-school funk and jazzy mix. Spalding’s arrangement of this piece is quite illuminating. She can be heard playing electric bass and providing those soft and exquisite vocals we have grown accustomed to. Terri Carrington provides a sustain beat with her drums; while the horns section boogie down to a rhythm that embraces free-spirited fusion of jazz and funk!
The Land of the Free track is interesting simply because it is only one minute and fifty-four seconds in length, and it features Spalding singing with organ accompaniment by James Weidman. The piece is dedicated to the Innocence Project, whose work is well known for successfully exonerating hundreds of men and women who have been wrongly convicted. Spalding sings in a voice that has so much emotional power that she does not distance herself from it. She embraces the song by painting a picture that takes you to another place. Weidman’s organ playing is sanguine and measured accompaniment that brings a keen sense of reverence to the piece. There are no floral, no baroque, no over-decorated licks in Weidman’s performance — he just plays the tune, and he plays it marvelously.
Esperanza Spalding is the sonic center of the Radio Music Society CD, the axis around which every vigorous action revolved. In a bright and imploring tone she formed terse and exhilarated elaborations on her themes, phrasing in concrete, epigrammatic bursts. She often removed herself from the textural churn of the band, soaring high before plunging back in, like a diving cormorant or emotional-intellectual level.
If you listen to Esperanza’s music closely and meditatively, Radio Music Society is capable of leading to discoveries about connecting with each other and ourselves.
Danny R. Johnson is San Diego County News’ Jazz and Pop Music Critic.
