Music is her first love

When fame found Esperanza Spalding, everything that followed seemed to come so naturally to the singer-composer-bass player that it was hard not to think she'd been ready for its arrival all her life.

Outside jazz circles, the first major focus on Spalding came in 2011, when the then 27-year-old brushed aside the behemoth that is Justin Bieber to win the award for best new artist at the 53rd Grammys - the first time a jazz artist had ever won the prize.

But what we were really witnessing then was the culmination of years of study, practice and learning, and the acknowledgement of a talent that is as rare and unique as it is diverse. Overnight sensations are, after all, never really that at all.

The laidback ease with which Spalding has accepted all the attention that came with that Grammy - and her performance at last year's Oscars - sits in perfect keeping with how the artist comes across in person too - or down the phone line before a show in Oakland, California, at least.

"Well I don't have as many off days as I seem to have something going on all the time," she says, laughing, when asked how much her life has changed over the past few years.

"But I think the music really speaks for itself. There are other layers going on, with people talking about you or giving you attention. I can get attention or no attention but as long as I'm doing music, it doesn't matter what else is happening. I am just concerned with the art-making and that's the music."

Her inspiration, Spalding says, comes from many sources. There's the music her mother listened to back in Portland, Oregon, that surrounded her formative years, and then there are those she has collaborated with over the years since music became her life, among them Pat Metheny and Stevie Wonder. There were also moments, very early on, that left a lasting impression.

"I think it's pretty much a universal experience, that first time we are exposed to something that becomes a passion, or something we make into a profession or a life," says Spalding, who's about to visit our shores with her band as part of the 2013 Hong Kong Arts Festival.

"It's something that stays with you forever. For me it was when I was around four or five and some string musicians came to my school and played. I remember watching and being transfixed by this music being played right in front of my face. It was so powerful, so magnetic. I'll never forget it."

Not long after, Spalding says, she switched on the television to find cellist Yo-Yo Ma playing live. "Again, watching that performance just stopped me in my tracks," she says.

"Now I make my living playing music, but all along my life has been strung along by the experiences of watching, hearing and witnessing practitioners of this craft creating this thing out of nothing.

"It's wild. If you write something down, you see it on the paper, but with performance it appears literally out of thin air, creating content and value that wasn't there before you opened you mouth, or moved your body, or touched your instrument. Being witness to that unfolding in real time has always been one of the most miraculous parts of living for me," she says.

Spalding tried her hand at the violin and piano before the bass caught her attention, leaving high school at 16 to study the instrument full time at Portland State University. "I loved the sound from the start and I liked the interaction you have with the instrument. I just like to play the bass for other people. But I love the sound, first and foremost, just the sonic vocabulary of it. It's so diverse and rich. I didn't know I would end up singing, but it's a great accompanying instrument for a vocalist - it's like having a partner up there with you on stage. It gives you all kinds of scope for imaginative ideas," she says.

Just how wide the range of her imagination reaches can be found on 2008's Esperanza and last year's Radio Music Society, which made its debut at No 10 on the Billboard albums chart in the US and went on to win her a Grammy for best jazz vocal album. Spalding's sound cuts across the spectrum of jazz and soul, with lyrics that often dig deep into how she sees the state of the society that surrounds her.

The bass forms the backbone of her big-band style, but it's the voice that lingers. "Everyone sings and I was always singing walking around the house, or with the dogs or with the radio. When I started playing bass, I didn't know how to read the sheet music. So I would go to my friend's house and I would sing the melody and memorise the roots of the chords. That's how I learned the songs and he said one day, 'You have a good voice. We should go play live some time.' And we did - that's how I started singing."

The live experience, she says, is all about finding new ways to expand on the music she makes; the challenge she thrives on with her bandmates is pushing each other every time they get up to play together, she says.

"It's like hanging out with a good friend or someone you are infatuated with. You know why you want to be around them, but every time you are you find new reasons to be. You might talk about similar subjects, but the conversation is new today. You have to be willing to go wherever the conversation is going and be uninhibited. It's satisfying and freeing, and sometimes a little scary but you just go for it. It's about sharing something that only you can see."

Spalding recalls the story of a fellow musician who claimed he only worked when the muse inspired him, but who said he was lucky because that muse turned up every morning when he started work at 9am. "That's the heart of it," she says. "There's a miraculous quality to making art that doesn't happen if you're not there. So you have to be and you have to work on the tools that help you manifest it. It's as natural as running faster is to an athlete who works on that every day.

"It's all about the ideas and, as I said, manifesting something that wasn't there before with your hands, or lyrically, or a song you wrote or an idea you had. That happening over and over again, and evolving, is what keeps music going - and it's what keeps me going."

thereview@scmp.com

Esperanza Spalding - Radio Music Society, March 15-16, Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall, HK$120, HK$180, HK$250, HK$350, HK$450 Urbtix. Inquiries: 2734 9009