Monthly Archives: March 2016

More Jazz – Esperanza Spalding

Been covering a lot of jazz so far this year, but there’s so much good stuff out there!

Esperanza Spalding won the Grammy for Best New Artist in 2011, an unusual feat for a a singing, songwriting, bass-playing jazz artist.  She beat out Justin Bieber, Drake, Mumford & Sons, and Florence + The Machine that year – gives you a feel for the impression she made to stand out in that decidedly non-jazz company.

Spalding released her fifth album “Emily’s D+Evolution” on March 4th.  It was co-produced by Tony Visconti who also co-produced David Bowie’s “Blackstar” (see our recent post).  The psychedelic visuals for the album’s first track “Good Lava” go with its progressive rock/jazz vibe, and you know you want to see her in concert after watching the live video for the album’s second track “Unconditional Love”.

While the new album shows off her eclectic side, Spalding’s career features plenty of straight jazz sensibility as well, winning her praise from the likes of Gary Burton, Pat Matheny, and Joe Lovano. Here she is playing live at the White House earlier this year, and a couple of years ago with Herbie Hancock at the Kennedy Center Honors, singing Sting’s “Fragile”

Aspiring Artists Cover the Classics

In a bit of pre-March Madness, I’ve been binging on “The Voice”.  While the show’s been criticized for not producing huge new artists in its ten years on the air, it is great fun.

This year, three aspiring, young artists dug deep into the vaults of classic rock and folk to find 90-seconds of magic that would feature their talents and get the celebrity judges to turn their chairs.

Fifteen-year-old Caroline Burns chose the Carole King classic “So Far Away ” from “Tapestry” released in 1971.  Enjoy her snippet, and then this amazing live performance by Carole King with James Taylor, accompanying on guitar as he did on the album.

Digging slightly farther back in the annals of rock was Ryan Quinn who chose Blind Faith’s “Can’t Find My Way Home”. The tune is from the 1969 one-and-only-album released by the super-group that featured Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker post-Cream, and Stevie Winwood post-Traffic. Here is Ryan’s condensed version, and a very nice solo acoustic version by the composer – Winwood himself.

The award for the deepest dig goes to Owen Danoff who covered my favorite Dylan song, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”. Here’s the performance that got Owen a spot on “The Voice”, and the original, written in 1962, from “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”. That album, by the way, was the legend’s second, and where his eponymous debut album was mostly covers, “Freewheelin'” was mostly original material. I promise that listening to the whole Dylan track won’t be a waste of your precious time.