Holly Andres
The video for “Good Lava,” a track from Esperanza Spalding’s newest album, Emily’s D+Evolution, begins with a colorful psychedelic swirl. A silhouetted figure pops into the frame, a bright-red circle pulsating at her center, as the kick drum begins to thump. She raises her arms to the sky and trills “See this pretty girl. Watch this pretty girl flow.” And then, amid a rush of masterful animation (exploding volcanos, classical statues on an assembly line), we see Emily (Spalding) in an African print jumpsuit and bright-framed glasses, grooving along on her bass.
Musical comparisons float through the mind — Wayne Shorter, Joni Mitchell, Prince, Zappa — but they only go so far. The more people try to pin her down, the more Spalding shifts. This classically trained four-time Grammy winner is wholly original, and she’s OK with the shape-shifting ambiguity behind the theatrical funk-jazz hybrid she’s exploring in Emily’s D+Evolution.
Isthmus spoke with Spalding in advance of her tour stop at Wisconsin Union Theater’s Shannon Hall on Oct. 30. We talked about her connection to Mr. Rogers and her relationship with Emily, the mischievous inner child/alter ego at the center of her current tour and album.
I read in your press kit that you were influenced by the episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood when he visits cellist Yo-Yo Ma. I love Mr. Rogers. What’s that story?
I truthfully do not consciously remember [watching the episode]. I know I saw it and talked to my mom and said “I want to do that.” Later, when I got to college as a classical bass student at Portland State University, I started studying Bach Cello suites. One struck me a little harder than the rest. It turns out that’s the one that Yo-Yo Ma played [on the episode].
And that’s when you started playing strings, at age five?
I wanted to play that thing — I thought it was called a violin. My mom hunted around and found a loaner for students who couldn’t afford them. Seven or eight years ago, I was doing a local news program and the host said we have a little surprise and they played an excerpt from that episode. The seed was planted. It was only a matter of time. It was inevitable.
You’ve played at the Oscars, the Grammys, the Nobel Prize ceremony and the White House. What’s your favorite kind of gig?
All playing counts. It doesn’t matter how someone sends the message “I love you.” If it’s in lights in Times Square, a whisper in your ear, in an email or a text — if the sentiment’s true, it doesn’t matter how you receive it, or how you send it. I feel the same way about sharing music with people. It really doesn’t matter. It’s music being made and it feels good to me.
Who’s Emily and what is her “D+Evolution?”
In Oct. 2013, I experienced this knock at the door, this creature, that I needed to explore. We don’t know what Emily is, where she came from. She just busted out and was all about moving and letting the lava flow and being loud and breaking the curtain and dancing and playing and inviting these grownup musicians to get silly and play with her. The people she meets begin to teach her what it’s really like here. She tries to understand what they’re saying but the more she hears, the more she finds herself repeating what they’ve told her. She’s not satisfied with the rules and laws. She politely declines and she continues to have her own inquisitive journey. The people who are teaching her start asking questions and they realize she has something to teach us. They realize they, too, want to break down constructions in a way that’s more beautiful, more fun, more liberating and they learn the ultimate message about what being in that world can be.
