Known for her virtuosic bass playing, singer, songwriter, and composer Esperanza Spalding made history in 2011 when she became the first jazz musician to win Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards, famously beating out Drake, Justin Bieber, and Florence & the Machine. “I hoped it would open doors for me and that I would be able to bring a lot of people along on the rise,” says Spalding. “I perpetually wish that more of that daring vanguard jazz music would make it into the mainstream; it opens up your imagination and your sensory field.”
Since then, Spalding has collaborated with the likes of Herbie Hancock, Prince, and Janelle Monae, co-written two operas (a third, NIGREDO, written with transdisciplinary artist brontë velez, is on the way), and founded Prismid Sanctuary, a nonprofit residency and regenerative farm for BIPOC artists in Oregon. “Our work is about creating a place for community gathering, creative practice, and cultural exchange in a way that directly nourishes and restores the land,” she explains.
Spalding recently earned her 12th Grammy nomination, for Milton + Esperanza, a collaboration with the Brazilian singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Milton Nascimento, which is up for Best Jazz Vocal Album. Dedicated to their late friend Wayne Shorter, a legendary jazz saxophonist with whom they both collaborated, the album features a mix of original songs written by Spalding as well as jazz and pop standards from Nascimento’s catalog. “I wouldn’t exist without musicians like him,” Spalding says of Nascimento. “This Grammy would acknowledge that our elders are still creating, and they still need to be celebrated.”
For our February issue, Spalding curated a playlist around the theme of possibility, including Bilal’s rock-influenced “Quantum Universe,” Tamela Mann’s gospel anthem “This Place,” and Matthew Stevens’s jazz ballad “Our Reunion,” on which she sings. “The whole process of making that song unlocked possibilities within me,” says Spalding. “I found parts of my voice I had never explored before."
