EPERANZA SPALDING
Junjo

Ayva Music

When Esperanza Spalding talks about learning to play bass with a local blues band in her hometown of Portland , Oregon, she explains that at first she couldn’t play the right notes, but that the feel was there, you understand that she is a natural musician. Now, after studying at Berklee College of Music (becoming, according to the Boston Phoenix “the poster girl for the college”) and playing with Patti Austin and Joe Lovano, the notes are there as well. But the feel is still great.

Jazz bassists who are bandleaders can find it difficult to give both aspects of their career equal footing—and it’s more difficult still to get audiences and critics to value both equally. Charles Mingus, Dave Holland, Christian McBride, all have found that as they became well known as players, they were not as well known as bandleaders or composers. When the focus is on their composing, their playing is sometimes sent to the back burner of listeners’ minds. Spalding does some composing on her debut disc, Junjo, and she’ll probably become more of a bandleader in the future, but there’s yet another dimension to what she does: Esperanza Spalding is also a vocalist who can sing along with her bass playing, or who can sing as though she were a fourth member of the group. Her voice can be used in a conventional sense, but it can also be another instrument. And because her vocals arise from the same mind that controls her bass playing, it gives her an edge, connected as she is to the rhythmic base of anything she’s playing.

Junjo was recorded in Westwood, MA for the Barcelona-based Ayva Music label. Spalding’s trio is rounded out by two Cuban musicians who are currently Boston-based, pianist Aruan Ortiz and drummer Francisco Mela, both of whom are important elements in the recording’s success. The recording seems very organic, from the first iteration of the springy bass riff that leads off Spalding’s rendition of Jimmy Rowles’ gorgeous composition “The Peacocks.” Spalding takes the lead immediately, but her trio mates are able to assert their own voices despite being in the background at first. Mela adds some very choice breaks to his work here, and shows right off the bat that he’s firmly in the Paul Motian/Jack DeJohnette school of creating space for the rhythm to be felt rather than asserting it. Ortiz is able to go from background comping to light fills to taking the melodic lead seemingly without a thought. The trio’s sound is light and full of space, yet it is not without energy and fire. Quite the contrary: the relative ease with which the group communicates and executes musical ideas allows them to build up a charging head of steam without bombast.

The group’s performance of Egberto Gismonti’s “Loro” is lighter still, the opening a delicate filigree that features Esperanza’s wordless vocals and bass playing, accompanied by Mela on tabourine. Ortiz plays cat-and-mouse with Esperanza’s bass and the whole thing is a raging swirl of Latin rhythm and jazz swing that feels joyful. Too few jazz recordings these days convey a sense of joy that emanates from the musicians. The performance put me in mind of some of Chick Corea’s best work with a small group playing music with a Latin rhythm that swings. And apparently that’s not off the hood, because the next track is a version of Corea’s composition “Humpty Dumpty.” Originally recorded in 1978 on Corea’s Mad Hatter album, the piece is a perfect example of Corea’s ability to maintain a playful stance and jazz aesthetic even while applying classical forms and discipline to his compositions. Spalding and her group remain true to these elements of Corea’s composition, resulting in a particularly satisfying performance.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the group’s various influences and origins, there is a heavy rhythmic element to the disc, and in particular a healthy dose of Latin rhythm. That exerts itself on such original tracks as Ortiz’ modal “Mompouana,” the Spalding/Ortiz composition “Perazuan” (which I’d bet was pretty much improvised in its entirety in the studio) and Spalding-composed title track. “Junjo” goes from a languid tropical feel to doubletime speed bop and back again as the band demonstrates its amazing feeling of interconnection. The one song where Spalding sings actual lyrics, albeit in Spanish, is Gustavo Leguizamon and Manuel Castilla’s “Cantora de Yala,” and you realize that after Spalding conveys so much meaning and emotion singing wordless vocalese, it doesn’t matter at all in you can’t understand the language, so attuned has the listener become to her voice at this point in the program.

For all of the looking for the next young jazz musician, Spalding arrives without loads of hype, armed instead with miles and miles of talent. For those who enjoy inventive trio playing, who love contemporary jazz bassists like Arild Andersen, Dave Holland, and Christian McBride, who like adventurous music that sounds as though it was made by a group of musicians who actually enjoy playing together, Junjo is the CD for you. If you only buy a handful of CDs this year, this should be one of them.