Esperanza Spalding

The San Sebastian show as it was broadcasted on spanish Tv. Esperanza, if you read this. I love you, marry me!

When Esperanza Spalding takes the stage for her shows in November, the concerts will be like nothing she’s ever done before. She is stepping out from behind the upright bass and other instruments that have anchored her live shows for almost a decade. She’s also taking a new approach: multimedia experimentation anchored by a little bit of witchcraft.

Spalding announced a new album called 12 Little Spells Tuesday, and an accompanying 12-date tour. Known as one of the most notable (and,, accidentally controversial) jazz musicians performing today, Spalding is beginning to move out of that identity. Her 2017 album, Exposure, was conceived and recorded in 77 hours that she live-streamed. She’s taking the improvisational skills that are baked into genre, adding a bit of John Cage’s love for chance and intuitive performance, and bringing it to the stage in a way she’s never done before.

The album’s lyrics and sounds are inspired by research into spiritual practices, alternative medicine, and a reading of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s book Psychomagic, about the healing powers of art. Magic is new for her, and she’s not entirely serious about it. “I’m employing it as a tactic,” she said. “I’m saying ‘magic’ in a way that’s tongue in cheek.” But it’s born of her desire to think of a new way to think about music; she said she’s planning on applying to a masters program this fall, to study music therapy and learn more about how the body and the brain work together. “But with this, I wanted to start with my body.” The idea came to her originally when she tried Reiki, the Japanese spiritual practice centered with healing through energy, after an emotionally stressful period in her life. She was inspired by “the language and the nomenclature of Reiki” to do something she called a “non-scientific approach to how music, sound, and energy, when combined in specific ways, can have an effect on you.” The way she decided to do that was to make music that had a physical effect on herself, thinking of a different body part for each song. For example, the song “All Limbs Are” is dedicated to her arms, and ”Thang” to her hips.

Starting October 7, she’ll release one song or ”spell” a day on her Web site for the next 12 days. Courtesy of Carmen Daneshmandi. Each of the 12 shows will focus primarily on a different song, and though Spalding’s hope is that her audience will feel some inspirational or healing effect, she’ll settle for putting on a good show. “I want to have a beneficial effect on your physiology, but it’s not my business what happens after that,” she said. “It’s my gift to you.” The songs were crafted in a fittingly whimsical place: a castle in Italy where she was staying with friends.

“I was surrounded by people in all different walks of life,” she said. “When I was writing the hips [song], I would watch people, watch how the movement in their hips changed in different circumstances. I was thinking, ‘What can I give to the hips?’” She had a good idea of the collaborators she wanted to work with off the bat: visual artist Carmen Daneshmandi, theater and opera director Elkhanah Pulitzer, and video artist Ethan Samuel Young.

Spalding recorded the album over two weeks at a studio in Brooklyn, and shared snippets of songs, ideas, and moods with her collaborators as the sessions went along, while also incorporating some of her collaborators’ ideas into the final recordings. Miami nights pc version. She recorded with musicians she knew and trusted, but said that thinking about magic during the process helped her understand the role that chance has always played in making music. “Alchemy and magic are about how mundane, benign, and abundant materials can have an effect that is greater than the sum of their parts. To me, creativity is alchemy.” EDITOR’S NOTE: This article has been updated.