The new face of Jazz

Have you experienced the wonder that is Esperanza Spalding? Have you seen the marvelous fret work? Have you heard the layered, sultry voice? For it is like the coming of a new dawn; a dayspring among stagnant music everywhere.

It happens every so often, a person or group who can come along and redefine the way things are done, a person who transcends genres while at the same time reinventing them. Every so often, musical evolution leaps forward. Enter Esperanza Spalding, a young Portland, Oregon native who's personality is bubbly upbeat, and who's talent runs deeper than most of the more accomplished musicians. Just how talented? By the time she was 5 she taught herself the violin. When she was eight, she learned jazz guitar by merely listening to her mother's instructor, letting the knowledge enter her being. She plays oboe, she plays clarinet, but her true love, the instrument that truly resonated with her was the bass. She picked it up in high school and was lauded a virtuoso within months. According to her it was like "waking up one day and finding that you're in love with a coworker."

The love affair has served her well. Not only has she become renowned within Jazz circles and far beyond, but she was also hired on as an instructor at the renowned Berklee College of Music in Boston at the young age of 21. But truly, the real benefactor's would be us, the ones who get to revel in the sounds she creates.

I think of the great Herbie Hancock when I listen to her stunning album Esperanza which may or may not sound strange to the Jazz connoisseur for stylistically, they are quite contrasting. But within her is a urge to explore and expand, pushing beyond the borders of whatever blueprints may be set in front of her in order to create something truly and utterly new and that is where I see the kinship.

Each track of Esperanza is testament to her commitment of not letting market value overshadow the quality of the art. She can move seamlessly through jazz and be-bop, to samba and Bossanova, and then even throw in a little funk and hip-hop just to keep things interesting, before coming around full circle. Her voice is like that of a dream. She doesn't sing the words so much as they flutter from within her, almost dancing over the music. It can be high-pitched and commanding, or it can be soft and dreamy. Every aspect of her is a remarkably different being. You may not even notice it a first. And that is the true beauty: As revolutionary as she is, she is quite possibly Jazz at its most pure.

Traditional listeners of the genre may scoff at her album. But how could they? Save for a handful of defiant pockets, the genre had become somewhat stale and predictable, with every radical notion that formed it's base lost to years of stagnancy. Esperanza has breathed new life into it. I only wish now that someone could do the same for rock and roll.

More information about her beautiful sounds can be found here.