Ohio
Theater
April
7
 |
| A rare combination of brains, beauty and talent. |
Good
music knows no genre boundaries, so an appearance by Esperanza
Spalding prompted a trip to Playhouse Square on Sunday night. The
preternaturally gifted bass player and singer-songwriter is currently
touring with a big band, performing flashy arrangements of songs from
her 2012 release Radio Music Society.
Like
the CD, the show is pegged to a conceit: Spinning through the radio
dial, occasionally a song pops up that can totally transform the mood
of the moment or the cast of an entire day. The stage is set for this
with a boom box facsimile fronting the bandstand, and tuning and
static noises preceding Spalding’s entrance and musical
introduction to the group – nine players on keyboards, guitar,
drums and six horns, along with two backup vocalists.
With
the first song, “Hold on Me,” the focus shifted to affairs of the
heart, and the show spun out as a tight package of love songs held
together by scripted patter from Spalding, usually in rhyming verse.
Only someone with her charm and sex appeal could pull that off,
though Spalding seemed to realize she was pushing the limits of the
audience’s good graces, saying at one point, “I don’t want to
burn you people out on my life stories.”
The
music is what made it all work. Rotating between stand-up and
electric bass, Spalding took only an occasional solo to show her jazz
chops, which are considerable. For most of the night she set a groove
with the rhythm section and let the horns carry the melody and solos,
in dazzling arrangements that gave the performance a pop gloss, like
a slick nightclub or Vegas act. The jazziest element throughout the
show was Spalding’s singing, delivered mostly in a smart scat style
that called to mind Ella Fitzgerald or even Sheila Jordan.
The
performance could turn maudlin at times. After informing the audience
that “We don’t just play, we can act, too,” Spalding had a
lengthy vocal exchange with singer Chris Turner so nakedly
confessional that it was almost operatic, especially with Leo
Genovese supplying soap opera chords on the organ. But that
eventually righted itself into a glowing version of “Black Gold,”
featuring a soaring duet by Spalding and Turner and brilliant colors
from the horns.
A
perennial activist for social and environmental causes, Spalding
paused at one point to plug the organization Earthjustice (“Did you
know Mother Earth doesn’t even have a good lawyer?”), which is
getting a cut of the CD sales on this tour. She then launched into a
sharp, funky version of Wayne Shorter’s “Endangered Species”
that included a nifty trumpet solo by Ben MacDonald and gorgeous
three-part harmonies by Spalding, Turner and Leala Cyr.
Cyr
and Turner struck up a repeating refrain that carried the closing
number, “Radio Song,” through a singalong and tasty drum solo by
Lyndon Rochelle. The pop beat and flavor was burnished by some clever
work in the horns simulating traffic noise. Spalding ended the
evening on a jazz note, returning for an encore with just the drums,
guitar and keyboards for a tight version of “I Know You Know” that
gave her a chance to stretch her vocals.
While
this was not a show for jazz purists (like this critic), it was an
impressive performance by an artist who is a gifted player, talented
singer and sophisticated bandleader. It’s rare to find that
combination, much less a vision of how to package and present music
that is intensely personal in both content and form, and make it
accessible to a wide audience. More than anything, Esperanza
demonstrated that at the tender age of 28, she can do whatever she
wants and make it work.
For
more on Esperanza Spalding: http://www.esperanzaspalding.com
Photo by WENN
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