The great Herbie Hancock described her as a “wonderful bassist, wonderful singer and bright talent” and it just drove her crazy to the point of her saying that the accolade was the highlight of her career — despite the five Grammy awards she won in 2008, or playing before President Obama at the White House or her teaching stint at the legendary Berklee College of Music.
Esperanza Spalding fights shy of fame as she talks to tabloid! prior to playing at the Dubai Jazz Festival on Friday.
You’ve done many concerts around the world, but what are your thoughts about playing in the Middle East at the Dubai Jazz Festival?
I don’t know what to expect from a place before I go there. I do lots of travelling which is one of the best things about being a musician and about exploring the world artistically and exploring the world literally. I always feel that when we come to a place as musicians and connect with other people involved in art, those tend to be my favourite kind of people. We are kind of spoiled in that sense because everywhere we go we get to connect with lyrical people. That’s what I’m looking forward to in Dubai.
What sort of an experience is it playing at a Festival, alongside great musicians like Sting, John Legend and James Blunt — a blending of art and purpose?
Wow, everybody you mentioned I dig for different reasons and I believe that the audience will have a similar response. There’s only two kinds of music — music you like and music you don’t like. So when you’re in a place surrounded by genres I don’t think it’s any different. One thing that I do like when I perform at a festival with mainstream artists is that their production tends to be different in the way jazz or classical musicians present their music. It’s interesting to me to see how people just put on a show while jazz musicians don’t put on a show, it’s a different kind of entertainment, but I’m equally happy to just see Herbie [Hancock] just play solo or Don Cherry play with a duo. It’s just good music and we’re gonna play some good music too. I hope.
Where do you think you can express yourself the most — the studio, stage or at home?
Oh man! Everywhere, everywhere is different. I don’t think there’s different versions of me though I think. Playing bass or writing music or performing or rehearsing or composing, they are all are different mediums to express different aspects of my personality. So I don’t like one more than the other.
What is the main source of inspiration for your music — books, poems, people, places, cities?
It’s a combo… news interests me a lot and I try to read a lot about history, places and people and artists, world events, figures and perspectives. I do read a lot and I think a lot of inspiration comes from other peoples ideas. Great writers or speakers, whatever, or just living on this planet. Experience is definitely the main source of inspiration but often it’s something I read or hear, or shining a brighter light on my own experiences gives me a better understanding of it. That’s often how music that comes from my personal experience comes about, sometimes with the help of another great mind.
You said somewhere that the upright bass liberated you. In what way did it, as opposed to the violin, which, I believe, was your first love?
The way that I’ve always engaged in music was more on the lines of a jazz musician than a classical musician. And I didn’t know that until I played the bass. It’s like spending the first ten years of your musical life trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and then when I picked up the bass and started studying that music, and playing that music, was like that’s what I wanted to do all these years — to take a basic musical concept and be able to unpackage it in the moment. The bass just invited me to use all the aspects of myself as a musician and when you finally connect with yourself like that, I thought I could be myself.
Could I dare say that you injected glam into jazz… made it look sexy?
Well, that’s disputable. It depends on who you ask. I think of something Duke Ellington said: ‘When you’re dealing with highly creative music there’s always going to be a very small percentage of people who like it’. This is the way it is. Whether it’s dance, painting or theatre when you’re dealing with creative, experimental art it’s always going to appeal to a smaller percentage of music consumers. And that’s okay, because there’s always going to be individuals who like creative music. The same applies to me when I’m not considered a sexy person anymore, or ‘glamorous icon’ and all that’s left is the audience who actually dig what I’m doing creatively, maybe my public will dwindle but they will never go away. There will always be people who really, really appreciate creative, experimental art and I think in the jazz world those people have never gone away. In my case because I am a young woman my name and art has spread further.
Herbie Hancock had many nice things to say about you, and I’m going to read out what he said: “Esperanza is a wonderful bassist, wonderful singer, very bright talent and a human being that is very much dedicated to her support of everything that can make this planet sustainable. Not just the environment, but also the people. She really is into the support of doing everything for the evolution of the human spirit.”
Noooo. Oh my God. I’m flabbergasted, I’m speechless. Is that what he really said, I’ve got to live up to that.
What has been the highlight of your career so far?
What you just read to me. It has to be one of the greatest highlights of my career. The great things a musician can accomplish is connecting with the masters, the super human beings, and over the years you want to orbit them closer to you. So getting to connect with people like Herbie and Wayne [Shorter] you get to share something, human to human, artist to artist, and what you share stays in your system forever and impacts your music forever. What you just said, and knowing those people is just the greatest, greatest, greatest, greatest gift I could have received in my whole life.
- Due to increased demand, organisers have put out an extra 1,000 tickets for the John Legend and Esperanza Spalding performance at the Dubai Jazz Festival on Friday, February 27. For more, go to dubaijazzfest.com.
