Esperanza Spalding Interview

In February of 2011, I had the privilege of sitting down with Esperanza Spalding, the first jazz musician to ever win the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. Weeks later, Justin Bieber fans were still upset. They'd been retweeting this mock dialogue :

Justin: Knock Knock.
Esperanza: Who's There?
Justin: Esperanza Spalding.
Esperanza: Esperanza Spalding who?
Justin: Exactly.




Esperanza has shown nothing but grace in light of the onslaught by Bieber fans. At a one day master class she gave jazz majors at Portland State University, she drew a standing room only crowd. She made a point about supporting solos rather than stepping over them by asking one of the musicians how his day was and then interrupting him incessantly. The audience laughed.

Born in Portland, Esperanza says her life changed course at age 5...thanks to an episode of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.

He played one of the Bach cello suites and I had never heard someone play an instrument.
I just never heard music like that and I was...I dunno. Sold.
I was captivated and I went "Mama, I wanna do that .
Wah!"

For years she played classical violin. Then Esperanza found a double bass in her high school music room.

I was just trying first of all to play a note which was impossible.
Cuz if you've played violin for 11 years
and you try to play bass it's like your body rejects.
It's like no.

At 16 she enrolled at Portland State University to study jazz with Professor Darrell Grant.

(Darrell Grant)
She had a really good pulse
A really good sense of rhythm
She had a good sound in the bass even from the beginning
She could pull the strings.




A year later, Esperanza won a full scholarship to the prestigious Berklee College of Music.
At 20, she became the youngest faculty member in school history.
Her focus has always been on her art.
It's taken her a long way from Portland:
around the world, to the top of the jazz charts, even to The White House.
But she is still a Rose City girl at heart.


(Esperanza)
I love this city.
I'm always raving about it.
And then people come here and they see what I mean and
I'm like "Yeah!"
I'm proud.

And of course Portland is proud of Esperanza,
The night she won her Emmy a roar could be heard throughout the city,

(Darrell Grant)
I mean, we just screamed.
I was like "She won! She won!"
I went out on my front porch like yelling "She won! She won!"

Wherever life takes Esperanza she won't be travelling light.
After all she is in a committed relationship with that double bass.

I just like the damn thing you know
It doesn't have to get too deep
I just love the instrument &
It's fun to play
...so I keep going.

Because this blog is about music I just want to let Esperanza talk more at length about that last point: her love affair with the double bass.




I don't know why it's the bass.
When I picked up the bass something just felt more open
It was like "Oh I speak this language".
I don't know what that means.
I certainly couldn't play.
Like anyone who just picked up the bass I had no physical ability on the instrument, but I guess I felt like I could do it.
It just seemed accessible to me.
That was the beginning.




Then as I learned more about the bass's role in music and arrangement, I really started to love being a bass player.
I really loved playing with harmony like that.
I loved the exploration of expressing textures with lines.
Expressing whole palettes of color with one line.
I love that.
It's like playing drums and piano kind of together and those are two of my favorite instruments.
And so I love translating rhythmic ideas and grooves and patterns to this melodic instrument.
I just love everything about it.
I love the tone.
I love where it lies in the sonic spectrum--in a song.
And for singing, it's such a nice accompaniment for me anyway.
I love counterpoint.
I'm a fan of counterpoint.
I'm addicted to counterpoint.
For me , that's the way I get to express it.
With the voice and the bass and I got hooked on that right away ( laughs).
And of course there are reasons you can't explain:
I just love the damn thing, you know?
It doesn't have to be too deep.
I love the instrument and it's fun to play,
And it's fun to play improvise music with people that you enjoy communicating with so ...I keep going.

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The Beatles "This Boy", 1963

This is an amazing clip of George Harrison watching The Beatles perform "This Boy" 1in 1963.
"This Boy" was the B side to "I Want to Hold Your Hand".
Lennon said he was trying to capture the Smokey Robinson sound at Motown.
The chords are straight out of doo wop ( as were "Yes It Is")
The song is most associated with the one member of the band that did not contribute harmonies to the track: Ringo Starr.
George Martin cut an instrumental version of the tune for Ringo's silly solo scenes in "Hard Day's Night".
Nowhere near one of the great Beatle cuts but this moment is too good to pass up.
Especially as George talks about John's poor eyesight.

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#6 The Fall "Fit and Working Again" 1981

I'm fit and working again
And I feel like Alan Minter
I just ate eight sheets of blotting paper
And I tripped out on the Alka Seltzer

Alan Minter was the Middleweight title champ until he met Marvin Hagler at Wembley Arena in London. After the fight was stopped in three rounds, Minter's supporters caused a riot, throwing beer cans and glass into the ring and both boxers had to be ushered away by the police.

Prior to the fight, Minter made the blatantly racist statement on the BBC that "no black man is going to take my title away". He later retracted this statement and said he meant "no man" is going to take my title away. Previously, Hagler refused to shake Minter's hand, claiming "I don't touch white flesh."

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#5 France Gall Laisse Tomber les Filles (1964)

When people ask me what I was like in high school, I show them the blonde guy in this video.

Born Isabelle Geneviève Marie Anne Gall on 9 October 1947 in Pairs, France Gall was at first a teen idol performing songs with attitude like "Don't Be So Stupid" and "Don't Listen to the Idols", the latter written by Serge Gainsbourg.
In the summer of 1964, Gainsbourg and Gall teamed up for "Forget the Girls". Gainsbourg was in his 30's and the lyrics--as has been pointed out before--are full of the kind of disenchantment that a 30-something might be familiar with...but from the mouth of a teen...seems awfully precocious:

Luck abandons
He who only knows
How to leave bruised hearts behind
You'll have nobody
to comfort you
You won't have got away with this

Of course I must mention a band called April March that recorded an English version of this tune calling it "Chick Habit". Heard in 2 films including"Death Proof" by Quentin Tarantino, "

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#4 The Ethiopians Hong Kong Flu

In the midst of my week-long battle with swine flu, this became my theme song.

It's a killer/ Woah uh-huh
It's terrible and dreadful, mon


A minor hit for The Ethiopians, a ska, rocksteady reggae band who began recording in Jamaica in the mid-60's .

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#3 George Baker Selection "Little Green Bag" (1969)

Featured in the iconic slow motion walking hero shot in Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs", "Little Green Bag" became an international cult hit in 1991. That year the song hit #1 in Japan after it was used in a whiskey commercial.
But the tune was originally recorded and released at the band's own expense back in 1969. The George Baker Selection was part of a mini-Dutch invasion which included Shocking Blue and Tee Set. "Little Green Bag" peaked at # 21 on the Billboard Pop Hot 100 . In 1975, they hit again with "Una Paloma Blanca". And then Tom Jones ruined it all. But here's the original!!!

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#2 Billy Stewart "Summertime " (1966)

Washington DC motor mouth Billy "Fat Boy" Stewart scats and stutters his way through the classic "Summertime" and hits the top 10 in 1966. This and his punchy take on Doris Day's "Secret Love" are both featured on the LP "Billy Stewart Teaches Old Standards New Tricks". Billy also wrote and hit #24 in the charts with the terrific "Sitting in the Park" in 1965.
But it is this revolutionary take on the Gershwin classic that knocks me out...even a month deep into Autumn.

Tragically, Billy Stewart died on January 17, 1970, just two months prior to his 33rd birthday, when the car he was driving plunged into the Neuse River in Selma, North Carolina, killing him and three members of his band.

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