-
IAJE Day 2 - Esperanza Spalding
January 10, 2008. Posted by Joshua Jackson.
Add new comment | Filed under: attitudes, body and soul, different times, drums, emily dickinson, esperanza, fender rhodes, haddad, hope is the thing with feathers, IAJE 2008, Jazz Alive, joe lovano, leonardo, Live Music, love, moor, musicians, otis brown, percussion, quartet, scoop, spalding, two songs
"Esperanza."
Hope is the thing with feathers. That's what Emily Dickinson wrote. Then again, Emily never left her bedroom, which sounds pretty hopeless. She never saw a moor, nor the sea. And she would not have gone to an Esperanza Spalding show, like I did this morning.
I always ask musicians I know for the scoop on who's coming up. Joe Lovano told me about Esperanza. I checked out her MySpace page, but I had not seen her live.
Her quartet featured Otis Brown Jr. on drums, Leonardo Genovese on piano and Fender Rhodes, and Jamie Haddad on percussion. Esperanza plays bass, and she sings.
Here are two songs about lost love, from two very different times and attitudes.
Esperanza Spalding Quartet - She Got to You
Esperanza Spalding Quartet - Body and Soul
Esperanza Spalding has a new recording coming out in May on Heads Up Records. - Josh
© 2008 WBGO
-
J-Lo is 55!
December 29, 2007. Posted by Joshua Jackson.
Add new comment | Filed under: banner year, Birthdays, christian mcbride, class act, drummer jeff, favorite places, jazz standard, jeff tain watts, joe lovano, kenny barron, mccoy tyner quartet, montefalco, nation hope, orvieto italy, palazzo del popolo, Riff, sagrantino, toast of the nation, trio da paz, umbria region, Video, www youtube, york crewJoe Lovano, that is.
It's Lovano's 55th birthday today, and he's celebrating it with a three-day run with his quintet at the Palazzo del Popolo in Orvieto, Italy. What a way to end a monumental year. Wish I could be there, since Italy's Umbria region is one of my favorite places to be, but I'll be spending my New Year's Eve at Jazz Standard, with Trio da Paz, Kenny Barron, and a great New York crew for NPR's Toast of the Nation (hope you'll be listening!).
Incidentally, Toast of the Nation is where Lovano's 2007 began, as a member of the McCoy Tyner Quartet (bassist Christian McBride and drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts make four) at Yoshi's. You can hear the fruits of that week at Yoshi's on record.
It's been such a banner year for Joe. Check out the video below. And when you see him again, raise a glass of my favorite Umbrian wine, Paolo Bea's Sagrantino de Montefalco, in honor of him.
Happy birthday, Joe Lovano. You're a class act.
© 2007 WBGO







