I WAS THERE

A historic moment in bass world—recalled by those who were there to see it

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On upright or electric, Spalding masters groove and taste.

We met Esperanza Spalding back in 2006, when her first album came out. Eighteen years later, she’s the leading light of her generation…

ust 22 years old when Bass Player first interviewed her, Esperanza Spalding seemed prepped and ready for a career in the jazz limelight, with fully-developed songwriting and a keen grasp of both performance and songwriting. Her journey into bass had literally begun by accident, she told us: “I physically stumbled upon the instrument and picked it up, and found that it made a sound when I played it. It’s such an amazing instrument... the sound and the instrument itself captivated me. I was quickly able to figure out how to play with others, which was important for me at that time.”

Asked about her choice of instrument, she explained: “I have an upright bass of unknown origins: We think it’s French or German and from the turn of the 1900s. It’s a flatback three-quarter size instrument. That’s the bass that I could afford at the time. I was lucky, because I only found out later that I’d bought a good bass. I’ve never been the kind of person who looks for a particular sound and then tries to find an instrument to fit it. I got my bass and I figured out how to work with it.”

Also an electric player, preferring Doolin basses at the time, Spalding made waves in our world with her first album, Junjo, and has gone on to release seven more, most recently Songwrights Apothecary Lab, issued last year. Not that it’s been an easy ride: As any advanced upright bass player will tell you, the instrument takes a lifetime to master, if ever. “It’s like the difference between guitar and cello—they’re different instruments,” she told us. “You have to go very slow and be conscious of what you’re doing with your muscles—and you have to get rid of the word ‘difficult’ from your vocabulary, because otherwise you’ll think it’s hard, when in fact it’s not as hard as you think it is!”