Esperanza Spalding (born 1984) is an American multi-instrumentalist best known as a jazz bassist and singer, who draws upon many genres in her own compositions. In 2011, she won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist at the 53rd Grammy Awards, making her the first jazz artist to win the award.

Spalding grew up in the King neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, a neighborhood she describes as "ghetto" and "pretty scary". Her mother raised her and her brother as a single parent.

Spalding has a diverse ethnic background. She notes, "My mom is Welsh, Hispanic, and Native American, and my father is black." She also has an interest in the music of other cultures, including that of Brazil, commenting, "With Portuguese songs the phrasing of the melody is intrinsically linked with the language, and it’s beautiful".

Her mother shares Spalding's interest in music, having nearly become a touring singer herself. But while Spalding cites her mother as a powerful influence who encouraged her musical expansion, she attributes her inspiration for pursuing a life in music to watching classical cellist Yo Yo Ma perform on an episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood when she was four.

By the time Spalding was five, she had taught herself to play the violin and was playing with the Chamber Music Society of Oregon. Spalding stayed with the Chamber Music Society of Oregon until she was fifteen and left as concertmaster. Due to a lengthy illness when she was child, Spalding spent much of her elementary school years being homeschooled,but also attended King Elementary School in Northeast Portland. During this time she also found the opportunity to pick up instruction in music by listening to her mother's college teacher instruct her mother in guitar. According to Spalding, when she was about 8 her mother briefly studied jazz guitar in college; Spalding says, "Going with her to her class, I would sit under the piano. Then I would come home and I would be playing her stuff that her teacher had been playing." Spalding also played oboe and clarinet before discovering the bass in high school. She is able to sing in English, Spanish and Portuguese.
Discovering the bass
Spalding performing at the Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia, Italy on July 12, 2007

Spalding had intended to play cello, but discovered the bass during a one-year stint at age 14 at the prestigious performing arts high school, The Northwest Academy, to which she had won a scholarship. The school was not a good fit, but the bass was. Spalding found high school "easy – and boring" and dropped out. When asked in 2008 why she plays the bass instead of some other instrument, Spalding said that it wasn't a choice, but the bass "had its own arc" and resonated with her. Spalding says that for her discovering the bass was like "waking up one day and realizing you’re in love with a co-worker." By the time she randomly picked up the bass in music class and began experimenting with it, she had grown bored with her other instruments. Her band teacher showed her a blues line for the bass which she later used to secure her first gig. After that, she went in to play the bass daily and gradually fell in love.

When she was 15 or 16 years old, Spalding started writing lyrics for music for the local indie rock/pop group Noise for Pretend, touching on any topic that came to mind. Although she had taken a few private voice lessons which taught her how to protect her voice, her primary singing experience had come from "singing in the shower", she said, before she started performing vocals for Noise for Pretend. Her desire to perform live evolved naturally out of the compositional process, when she would sing and play simultaneously to see how melody and voice fit together, but she acknowledges that performing both roles can be challenging. In a 2008 interview, she said, "[W]hat can be difficult is being a singer, in the sense that you are engaged with the audience, and really responsible for emoting, and getting into the lyrics, melody, etc and being an effective bassist/band leader."

Albums:


Junjo (2006)

   1. "The Peacocks" - 7:56
   2. "Loro" - 5:06
   3. "Humpty Dumpty" - 5:51
   4. "Mompouana" - 7:51
   5. "Perazuán" - 3:38
   6. "Junjo" - 5:13
   7. "Cantora de Yala" - 4:55
   8. "Two Bad" - 6:59
   9. "Perazela" - 1:32

Esperanza (2008)

   1. "Ponta de Areia" - 5:39
   2. "I Know You Know" - 3:46
   3. "Fall In" - 3:57
   4. "I Adore You" - 7:27
   5. "Cuerpo y Alma (Body & Soul)" - 8:01
   6. "She Got to You" - 4:29
   7. "Precious" - 4:24
   8. "Mela" - 6:57
   9. "Love in Time" - 5:47
  10. "Espera" - 4:40
  11. "If That's True" - 7:33
  12. "Samba Em Preludio" - 5:11

Chamber Music Society (2010)

   1. "Little Fly" - 3:33
   2. "Knowledge of Good and Evil" - 7:59
   3. "Really Very Small" - 2:44
   4. "Chacarera" - 7:27
   5. "Wild Is the Wind" - 5:37
   6. "Apple Blossom" - 6:02
   7. "As a Sprout" - 0:41
   8. "What a Friend" - 4:54
   9. "Winter Sun" - 6:48
  10. "Inutil Paisagem" - 4:38
  11. "Short and Sweet" - 5:52