Esperanza Spalding: jazz singer/bassist-- sounds kinda like Flora Purim or Minnie Ripperton

want to like this so bad. it's like screaming headless torsos meets joni. some great playing and arrangements, yet it's still falling flat on me. like the production is too slick. too much funk/fusion clinic kind of playing. never really grooves. not a lot to hold onto. like the kamasi washington album, im glad this music is being made but it's just like... going through the motions or a genre exercise or something.

although, it is also exceptionally long and I can only take it in small doses

― akm, Thursday, March 10, 2016 2:13 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

dude it's like 46 minutes long

xpost I don't really like the funk/fusion clinic playing/production too much, either, and the novelty of the arrangements and busyness of the vocals does get a little exhausting, imo, so I can easily see why 46 minutes could feel twice as long.

is it really only 46 minutes long? it feels longer.

tbh I could have done without the Willie Wonka song but I think the rest is perfect

whoa this is great

this thread title

xp: absolutely, this is very good except the proggy elements in the beginning which i don't like too much. she really sounds like joni's reincarnation of around "the hissing of summer lawns".

want to like this/her, and i prob need to listen to it more to be fairer, but i feel like she just has no personality to latch on to.

Saw her last night and she was just so talented and charismatic and doing her own thang it was almost uncanny. She was in character (as such), prancing around in a white jumpsuit and her goofy glasses, singing impossibly well into a headset mic and rocking what looked like a 5-string fretless. Music, per the album, was Living Colour (esp. her guitarist, who reminded me a lot, sonically, of Vernon Reid) meets Joni Mitchell. There was a stage set, a crazy "program" handed out at the start, backup singers/dancers, and she just killed it with no concern for the head-scratching it no doubt inspired.

caught her June 23 2010 with McCoy Tyner -- and Reverend and this thread came to mind immediately

really was a fantastic show (and the DJ played "Ain't No Half Steppin'" as she left the stage iirc)

Next project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAOezi2Ea0k

"This project is going to be a little different from other ones I've done. You buy a blank CD. Then over 3 days, I'll fill it with beautiful, spontaneously created music. And you can watch the whole thing unfold over Facebook Live. September 12 starting at 9 AM.

Order your blank CD now: http://found.ee/EspWeb-j

Only 7,777 copies will be available, so first come first served."

-Esperanza

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/07/jazz-star-esperanza-spalding-flutist-claire-chase-join-harvard-faculty/

I have been dying to tell ppl about this for the past week.

The Facebook Live feed has started...

http://www.facebook.com/EsperanzaSpalding/videos/10159220183305527/

New album sounding very cool!

What happened to 'first come, first served'? Does the Spotify self-destruct after 7,777 streams lol? (Not that I'm complaining either way.)

oh wait, my bad, this isn't Exposure, it's a whole new Thang:

http://www.esperanzaspalding.com/12-little-spells/

http://www.esperanzaspalding.com/home-12littlespells/

Still working through this, but "Touch In Mine" captures well what she seems to have been aiming for.

12 Little Spells is kind of a prog-pop masterpiece, no?

I like ES, she’s got the groove

I liked it a lot when I listened to it and posted to the jazz thread. Haven't come back to it but I should.

new song is incredible!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5l0Wu821Ww