A Night On The Town

MJ and I saw Esperanza Spalding tonight. As of Wednesday, I had no idea who she was, but I was feeling guilty about sitting on the Riverside Fine Arts board of directors and not going to any shows, so I bought some tickets. It’s really easy to find excuses not to go, to procrastinate and think that we’ll make it to the next one. The artists that we bring in are well known to their groups of fans, but they’re not huge acts, so I haven’t heard of most of them – like Esperanza Spalding. I’m glad that this was the show we picked. She’s the first performer since I don’t know when that I thought, “Wow! She’s cool.” She plays the bass, which isn’t my favorite instrument. It’s too low and the notes don’t “ring”. Bass players also have weird phrasing. She didn’t change my mind about any of that, but she’s insanely talented, and an absolute artist. She’s also really cute, and that always factors in. I know that she was aware that we were there because she interacted with us a bunch. She even gave us parts in her last piece, splitting the audience into “musicians” and “non-musicians”. But if we weren’t there, I think her night would have been spent doing pretty much the same thing, playing her songs with her band. I was worried that MJ was going to feel that I was dragging her to some silly marketing thing, but she was more blown away by the young Ms. Spalding than I was. I call her the young Ms. Spalding because she’s 25. When I think of jazz musicians, I tend to think of older performers. I’m not surprised by music very much anymore, but she was absolutely fantastic. She was so good that I wish I had gone to earlier shows because now I’m afraid that I missed something. She reopened my mind to the idea that new experiences can be worthwhile. That’s the biggest compliment I can give to an artist.