“I have been writing music that seems to live in Noah Davis’ paintings,” says bassist, singer, songwriter, composer, educator, and philanthropist esperanza spalding (who’s my age to the week and makes me feel as though I desperately need a more comprehensive day planner), reflecting on her last trip to the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection, which had her spending a week at the Philadelphia Museum of Art to perform as part of the recent Noah Davis exhibition, where she tells me she was amazed by the level to which the staff allowed her to engage with the art. However, she says the city has also provided countless mentors and inspirations over the years, name dropping The Roots, Jill Scott, Moor Mother, Rasheedah Phillips, Sun Ra House Arkestra, and Jef Lee Johnson, who she describes as, “a Philly institution in and of himself. He represented Philly hard all his life.”
spalding has played Philadelphia many times over her two-and-a-half decade career as a jazz musician (which boasts five GRAMMY awards), including shows at Electric Factory and Theatre of Living Arts, in addition to the Merriam Theater and the Roots Picnic. Last night esperanza spalding kicked off a little more than two weeks of dates at City Winery venues, with shows at City Winery Philadelphia on August 25th and 26th. But when I ask how she feels about the variety of settings in which her performances regularly find themselves, spalding admits, “Honestly, I don’t really care where we’re playing. It’s more about who I’m playing with, how prepared we are, and do you trust the Front of House sound person. But as long as we have that, we always have a good old time.” Of she City Winery shows, she tells me, “We’re gonna play some beautiful songs. The microclimate of our ensemble radiates a lot of joy. We’ll be doing selections from the last nine albums, our favorites, the ones that kept shining.”
I’m chatting with the Portland-based artist via phone last weekend, where she’s at the airport, en route to a solo performance on the final night of the inaugural Windgrease Festival, curated by writer, dancer, archivist, filmmaker, and esperanza’s “sister from another mister,” Harmony Holiday. And two days previous, spalding’s official YouTube page dropped a very short recap of her seven days in residence at the legendary Moldejazz festival in Molde, Norway, where she played ten years before, but where she tells me she was exceptionally excited to return with a new connection to the country: “I found out in the time since then that I have a great-great-great grandmother who was Norwegian, who emigrated to the States… I’ve always just loved the land there… but she’s the only relative I have who’s Norwegian, so I was inspired to explore what her life might have been and what compelled her to come to the States, and just emigration in general.” She also admits that that was an exceptionally inspiring location to play.
“In Norway we had a rag tag PA system on an island that was literally a battery generator with five mics total, and there are kids running around. And, at one point, I was sound checking the Wurlitzer, and I thought, ‘This is what I like to do…’ I do love to play piano. I don’t play publicly much, for other people’s benefit [laughs], but I do like to play and I like playing outdoors. I felt so free and so joyful playing with other people.”
Additionally, spalding has spent the summer, “teaching a course with Dr. Marisol Norris, the Songwrights’ Apothecary Lab at UCLA and the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science… which is dedicated to merging music and community with a more therapeutic benefit.” She also tells me she’s been prepping a series at Carnegie Hall as one part of their wellness series, in addition to doing a lot of fundraising to rebuild the Prismid Sanctuary, a sustainable community hub that spalding founded with and for Portland’s BIPoC artistic community in 2020. She tells me that the capital campaign fundraising for Prismid Sanctuary will continue into the fall, when she also has a plethora of live performances scheduled, including (in addition to her own shows) a few European dates doing the music of Wayne Shorter’s opera …(Iphigenia), for which spalding wrote the libretto.
*Get your tickets for esperanza spalding at City Winery Philadelphia here.
**Look out for the August episode of Philthy Radio on Y-Not Radio to hear esperanza spalding’s musical take on William Blake’s “Little Fly.”
