SEPT/OCT 2010 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM WHO’S NEXT Sandrine Lee

ESPERANZA SPALDING HOMETOWN: Portland, Ore. INFLUENCES: Cannonball Adderley, Ron Carter, Dave Holland ALBUM: Chamber Music Society, out now WEBSITE: esperanzaspalding.com

JAZZ BASS PLAYER AND SINGER ESPERANZA SPALDING the bass for about a year and a half. Most of the cats in the program has accumulated a lifetime’s worth of accomplishments at age 25, in had already had at least eight years of training under their belts, and part because she knew from a very early age what her destiny would I was trying to play in these orchestras and do these Bach cello be. She was only 4 when she saw classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma make a suites. It wasn’t really fl ying—but if nothing else, my teachers were guest appearance on the kids’ show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. saying, ‘OK, she does have talent.’” “That was when I realized that I wanted to do something musical,” Spalding went on to study at Boston’s Berklee College of she says. “It was defi nitely the thing that hipped me to the whole idea Music, where she became an instructor at the tender age of 20. She of music as a creative pursuit.” She taught herself to play violin, and earned her stripes on the road playing with saxophonist Joe Lovano. performed on the instrument as part of a local community orchestra “I don’t know if I was ready for the gig or not, but he had a lot of faith until she was 15. in me,” she says. “It was an amazing learning experience.” Spalding By that time she had discovered the bass, and the following released her debut album, Junjo, in 2006, but made her national year she earned her GED and bolted to study in the music program breakthrough with 2008’s Esperanza. Her new follow-up, Chamber at Portland State University. “I was defi nitely the youngest bass Music Society, fi nds Spalding leading a modern chamber music player in the program,” she says. “I was 16, and I had been playing group that encompasses elements of jazz, folk and world music.

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