Esperanza Spalding - Alien Life Form

The problem with the attention span of a microwaved internet-based society is that the complexities of those who take time with their craft get missed in the headline reads. The impetus for Esperanza Spalding’s Radio Music Society is to transcend the way mainstream society processes music. The most astute of jazz musicians, certified by none other than Berklee College of Music as not only a graduate, but a professor, Spalding found her way into many an unexpected home through a perhaps untimely win of Best New Artist three years after her arrival. Regardless of how late NARAS decided to make the statement that real musicians needed to win this award over pop icons and budding teen idols, we found ourselves having the DISCUSSION that was long overdue.

As humble as she wants to be, Esperanza, while clearly shocked at her win, graciously accepted the award and promised to make good on the win. She already had her latest project up her sleeve but was in the midst of the last leg of promoting a much more high brow jazz/classical project and for those unaware of her more accessible previous album, they dove into what was the current project and more than a few came out dumbfounded.

Radio Music Society opens the doors to those without the acumen to decipher the complexities, arrangements and meter shifts of a true jazz project. Her being an outstanding vocalist gives the ear so much more to latch on to as opposed to attempting to comprehend the expertise of her bass skills and compositions. She also blends the R&B leanings and pockets she introduced on her self-titled sophomore recording. While “Radio Song” is lyrically clever and a seemingly olive branch introduction, even it can’t stay but so simple and flips from R&B to traditional jazz to fusion over its six minutes plus. No way it’ll actually survive on today’s radio if it makes it there at all. Its length alone might stop a programmer, and if that doesn’t do it, the arrangements will lose a dumbed down Chrisette Michelle, Jill Scott or Jazmine Sullivan seeker.

"I Can’t Help It" is that perfect embodiment of what RMS can do for the masses. A familiar MJ classic, penned by Stevie, but completely re-worked by a genius of a bass player and arranger in Spalding, it succeeds where “Radio Song” might fail. It never LOSES even the layman in its superb metamorphisis.

Esperanza’s social pen is simultaneously contemporary and ahead of its time considering she’s only twenty-seven years old. The statements made in “Land of the Free,” “Vague Suspicions” and “Black Gold” convey a much more cerebral Generation Y-er. The latter happens to be a considerably timely piece considering the Trayvon Martin case and the public outcry of justice for young black men. Partnered with Algebra Blessett, Spalding hasn’t sought a major label star to overtly attempt bringing mainstream to her, but a kindred spirit and voice even more evident by the fact that Blessett co-wrote “Crowned & Kissed,” one of the album’s true standouts as well.

Having established the easily accessible tunes, let us address the jazz education also contained in this masterpiece. Wayne Shorter’s “Endangered Species” has long been a part of Esperanza’s set list. Shorter as a Miles Davis band member and Weather Report architect offers no less complex arrangement in the original form, and as Esperanza “respects her elders” like a good girl should (see Milton Namasciento’s “Pointa De Areia” re-worked on her sophomore album), she took many years before adding vocals to this jazz classic. Including Lalah Hathaway on this one and stretching her out a bit as the phrasing is faster than Hathaway’s throaty tone usually graces, the two get their full workout on this one.

Love for her hometown with a bit of production help from the infamous Q-Tip delivers the delightful “City of Roses” to us. In that same vein initially, “Cinnamon Tree” enters, but morphs to something otherworldly at the string-hands of Jef Lee Johnson.

The last statement of Spalding’s multi-dimensionality as well as her potentially held punches is captured in the jazz ballad, “Hold on Me.” Immediately evoking Nancy Wilson, Spalding shows that even if she put that wicked bass down, we’d still be in attendance of a torch song filled jazz concert with her right hand leaning on the piano and swooning us.

Ultimately, Spalding doesn’t have to dumb her shit down to bring the kids in. She doesn’t have to make overtures to the mainstream. She could’ve gotten her Grammy and gone. But once you consider all that this artist is capable of, the absolute humility in creating a project like this is the likeness of E.T. not killing Elliott’s whole family when the ship came back.  I’m just glad there’s someone, something out there like her, because I really don’t know what tomorrow would bring musically were it not for such a pheonomenon.