Esperanza Spalding on Role-Playing Jazz-Rock Opus ‘Emily’s D+Evolution’
A surprise “Best New Artist” Grammy win made jazz instrumentalist Esperanza Spalding break into mainstream consciousness, but the bassist singer-songwriter has always been ducking expectations. Her albums swing from the string arrangements of 2010’s Chamber Music Society to the contemporary-pop moves of 2012’s Q-Tip-assisted Radio Music Society. She’ll back up R&B explorer Janelle Monáe while also working in bands led by swing-circuit veterans like tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano.
But for all her past genre mobility, her latest album still sounds like a bold next step forward. Emily’s D+Evolution (pronounced “Emily’s D-plus evolution”) fuses potent alt-rock riffs and seductive R&B crooning with transitions coming by way of sly, prog-like interludes. The album’s theatricality is foregrounded by its titular main character, a presence that Spalding has sounded somewhat elusive about in interviews. Still, the character of Emily is clearly a galvanizing one for the bassist-composer. Rolling Stone spoke with Spalding about melding rock influences with traditional jazz practice for this knotty opus.
How has the “Emily” concept has affected your playing or composing?
I remember as a kid, like, learning “role-playing” in class, to learn skills. So that we would be more comfortable asserting ourselves in certain situations. … Like if a stranger offered you a ride in the car, we would role-play how to react. The idea is that when you’re actually in the situation — because you’ve been through the verbiage and how to interact with the circumstance — you’re also more likely to be able to actually utilize [what you’ve learned]. So I feel like in this case, the role-playing of being Emily is helping me get in touch with her energy. And I have been outside of the project, where I’m in situations and thinking — not “what would Emily do?” — but putting her hat on and her skin on. [That] role-play can help me get more in touch with qualities in myself that I want to enhance.
What qualities are those?
There’s a mode of expression — or like a mode of intensity or movement … that I hadn’t really cultivated yet [in my music]. That’s a really necessary part of my personality. I feel like it hadn’t found a home yet. Maybe because I was so focused on the technical aspect. It’s very challenging, to do the upright thing, singing and playing — it’s static and you have to stay in the same place. So maybe for the practical reasons, the fundamental qualities of my nature hadn’t really been harnessed in the realm of performance. … But Emily just came in and busted something open.
You’ve spoken about your admiration for Cream. Given the riffs that drive several songs on the new album, are any other artists from that tradition in your matrix of influences?
I love Mitch Mitchell. To me it sounds like he uses everything he found. He’s happy to go anywhere, with anything that comes his way — and I like people who play like that. It makes me really happy.
Is it a conscious mission to demonstrate the ways that jazz can cross-pollinate with pop forms?
I’m sure it can, because it’s a human endeavor, and humans can work with each other in different contexts — so why couldn’t the music? But it’s not like an underpinning of my philosophy, and I don’t feel particularly obliged to preach about it, or teach about it, or betray my perspective on it. I just do what I like to do! [Laughs.] I happen to be absolutely in love with — and a devotee of — quote-unquote jazz music and improvised music. I can’t help it. And it affects the music that I make.