To many on the hockey-and-Tim-Hortons side of the border, jazz singer and bassist Esperanza Spalding is best known as the performer who beat the Biebs for the 2011 Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
But to jazz music aficionados and a growing number of fans around the world, she has been touted as one of the most exciting artists to come along in many years. Her two additional Grammy Awards for her latest album, Radio Music Society, have only brought her increased acclaim. Justin Bieber? Still Grammy-less. Poor little fella.
The last time the genre-bending and soulful Spalding appeared in this city, it was in a tent during last year’s Toronto Jazz Festival. But this month she does it up right with a headlining performance at the venerable Massey Hall where the acoustics will allow her unique blend of jazz and a-bit-of-everything-else to soar.
It is the anything-goes aspect that comes with jazz music that caught this prodigy’s eye originally when she took up the bass as a 15-year-old kid while attending high school in her hometown of Portland, Ore.
“I don’t understand how it’s possible. I thought it was just, ‘Oh yeah, you just make up music, you just make up melodies,’ and I was like, ‘OK,’ ” says Spalding, of her initial jazz inclinations.
“But no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t. It was so hard. There was something about it that was so natural it included really hard work, and you had to learn how to let go, but you also had to know what you were doing. But you would listen, and somehow all this stuff was being created on the spot. So the intrigue got me in the beginning, and then the more I started listening, I thought, ‘Oh, I want to be doing what they are doing.’ ”
Sure, she found high school boring and ended up dropping out, but soon after, she became the youngest student in Portland State University’s music program.
Spalding then made her way to Boston — where she still resides —and the esteemed Berklee College of Music, where she attended on a full scholarship.
It was there that she began to develop her unique voice and musical direction characterized by an almost wilful attempt to not be pigeonholed by the limitations of any single genre.
“I’m listening to the music as it comes, and I have no qualms about using every bit of my art form to do justice to an idea,” says Spalding.
“And if the result of that is crossing many genres, then so be it. And if it doesn’t, then that’s OK, too. I feel like my work isn’t done when the style is achieved but when life is achieved for the song.”
For Spalding, one thing that seems certain is that she will do things her way, in her own time.
“I don’t care. It has to be my way. I would never do something that I felt uncomfortable or unsettled with,” she explains.
“So it’s kind of a moot point: I wasn’t going to do anything that didn’t resonate with me or get behind because it’s not worth it for anything that can be gained by sacrificing your integrity.”
From Spalding’s self-titled debut album to Chamber Music Society and her current album Radio Music Society, she has displayed an uncanny control of her material.
She has a penchant for stretching the boundaries of her craft with an increasingly impressive ability for keeping her sound real and accessible.
Accolades aside, she continues to evolve and grow her sound along with her fan base.
“I didn’t have any motivation to be famous or to be somebody, but when it happened, I was like, ‘OK, cool,’ ” she says. “It seemed to be good to play more and reach more people, so hey.”
Esperanza Spalding plays at Massey Hall on April 5
