Albums Of The Year – Number 7: Chamber Music Society by Esperanza Spalding
Thursday, December 2, 2010
The expression “What goes around… comes around” might not have been in the lexicon of 18th century poet William Blake but the sentiment certainly applies with the application of his work on Chamber Music Society.
Imbued with Blake’s dissentient spirit from the get-go with ‘Little Fly’, the 26-year-old Esperanza Spalding originally from Portland in Oregon uses the album to not just present her gifts as an acoustic bassist which word has got round about for some time especially since last year’s Folk Art Us5 album with Joe Lovano, she also sings in a breezily confident way, scatting resourcefully on ‘Knowledge of Good And Evil’ while luxuriating in Gil Goldstein’s wonderfully giving string arrangements that bring out the lustre and potential of the imaginative settings of Blake. Later covering other material especially the Dimitri Tiomkin/Ned Washington evergreen song associated with Nina Simone and David Bowie, ‘Wild Is The Wind’, her languid style sits beautifully against Leo Genovese’s curling melodica lines and the approaching presence of a tango rhythm.
Spalding brought this Heads Up-released album to life at the London Jazz Festival last month and as Mike Flynn reported at the time for the Jazzwise festival blog she had a distinctive approach to her stagecraft: “Removing a light overcoat, sitting down and slipping off her shoes, then pouring herself a glass of red wine, taking a couple of tentative sips, all made for a rather disconcerting but subtly dramatic set up scene for the concert to come.”
You could do worse than follow suit and pour yourself a celebratory glass, as many of the Jazzwise scribes undoubtedly did in voting for the album in significant numbers, and listen to Chamber Music Society. You can just imagine Blake transported to December 2010 snowed up in his studio, working on a new artwork dreaming about the apple blossom as he listens to this revitalising album.
– Stephen Graham