esperanza spalding

0:06Pushkin.

0:10A month ago at the Grammys, Alicia Keys gave a beautiful speech while accepting the Global Impact Award. Part of her speech was dedicated to the women producers who power the industry, women like Patrice Russian, Missy Elliott, Linda Perry, and others. This was top of mind for me when I sat down with Esperanza Spalding at the Blue Note Club in New York, where she was in the middle of a residency. Not only because she just produced a gorgeous new collaborative album by the unheralded Brazilian genius Milton Nascimento, naturally called Milton and Esperanza, but she's self-produced just about all of her own projects from the very beginning.

0:46Esperanza and I talk about why she's been producing herself from the jump in this episode, what it's been like working so closely with master mentors like Milton Nascimento, but also Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. And Esperanza tells me what she views as the rocky beginning to her career. This is Broken Record. Real musicians, real conversations.

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3:08Because a car that doesn't make you feel something is a car that stops short of amazing. Experience amazing at your Lexus dealer. If you'd like to watch the video version of today's episode, visit our YouTube page, youtube.com slash brokenrecordpodcast. Here's my conversation with Esperanza Spalding. He's just such a fangirl for... He's not even gonna, he's not gonna own it at this point. He's cool, he's cool. yeah he's probably playing it cool i think so because he knows they're gonna roast him about all the time that's so funny cool yeah no but i'm i'm happy uh i'm happy this worked out to do too though because i'm yeah i'm like uh as soon as the album got announced i was like you gotta be kidding me this is the most amazing thing i've ever heard that's what i i also felt this is the most crazy thing that i've ever heard when when his son asked me to produce it so yeah is that the origin of the visit so it was going to be more you producing a Milton well when the in the same moment that his son was like oh you should produce this record he said it should be Milton and Esperanza he kind of he framed it as like oh it'll be a duo project you know you and him should do this project together and you produce it um and I mean I when you revere somebody's work that much it it can almost it felt hard to almost like insert myself into the like palette of sounds um you know maybe I felt an initial temptation as a producer just kind of like I just want to bring stuff together and just you know bask in the glory of your songs and your sound but he Milton and his son were like no no you know we're gonna do it together it's gotta be it's gotta be your stuff too it's gotta be what you want and so that that actually made it scarier I think because oh it's kind of like can you it's almost like a challenge to the to the mentee or the younger person like can you stand by what you've developed up to this point in your musical life you know and consider it a contribution to the same global canon of music as your you know mentor and because that's that felt like the that feels like it's always the invitation with every next generation like you can't just keep you know revering and bowing to and like oh you know holding on this like silver holy platter I don't know the works of the ones before you like you had to sit in and live in and find out about what you've made inspired by them It was initially maybe supposed to be just you producing a Milton record, but then it sort of...

6:00No, his son always framed it as, you produce the record and it's going to be you and him. I just found that scary as the conceit of like, oh, it's going to be both of our music or both of our kind of aesthetic voice or presence on the album. I felt intimidating as a conceit, as a producer, and also as like a person who's so inspired by him and feel so affected by his body of work. Yeah. I mean, you collaborated also very closely with Wayne Shorter, who the album's dedicated to. Did it feel, I mean, I guess, are you just not used to, are you not yet used to working so closely alongside your hero?

6:51Or is it just never, is that something you just never grow accustomed to when you revere people? Yeah, I mean, when you put it like that, it sounds like there's just this long line of people on the level of Wayne and Milton that like you could go, you know, like, oh, and then next you'll go work with. To me, those two people are like my number one and number two. It's not in any hierarchy of order, but really in the history of music that's affected me that I've loved most deeply and studied the deepest, Wayne and Milton are it, you know? So this weird kind of like timing, I guess, of working so closely with Wayne for a decade, approximately a decade on this opera project.

7:49And then in the year that Wayne passes this project with Milton coming up that I don't know what to say about that. I think that's the first time I've maybe said that sequence of events out loud, and I don't know what to do with that. I don't even know how to process that because I know these humans. They are people that I love and revere as folks, people that I know, that I talk to and call and know. And also, they are two of the profoundest musicians to ever walk the earth, just period. And the circumstances that conspired for me to even know them and to even meet them, connect with them, and then get through these projects are just ridiculous.

8:43It's unbelievable. So all that to say, no, I'm not accustomed to working with people like Wayne Shorter and Milton because there aren't people like Wayne Shorter and Milton. They are both so singular. And yeah, getting to know both of them in the different ways and the different journeys that brought me to both of them have just been miracles of my life. You know what I mean? And when the opportunities opened or the invitations really, I'll say, came for me to work with them, I just said yes. what not really asking like am I am I ready for this am I equipped to do this I just said yes because I love them you know and how could you say no how could you say no and that's what I can say about that so you know also with also I don't want to like conflate the two of them because working with them were their own very distinct journeys and projects and pretexts but um it's really something so it's like a perpetual kind of uh stick whoo like dual state of existence where you're like okay this is person in front of me we got this work to do we're just trying to figure out the key for this song or like you know whatever is the detail in front of you and then the other part of you is like oh my god this is milton nasimento you know just trying to actually stay present and not swoon and like faint at the immensity of your hero sitting in the room with you you know so i'd imagine the details like focusing on the details and just the task at hand is is definitely the the way to just get your mind out of the the fawning and the yes one step at the time and also i mean you know since we're talking about the record with milton milton is is a very kind and generous person.

10:41He makes it easy for you to be around him. If he likes you, if he's messing with you, he makes it easy for you to just be in space. He's telling stories. He's telling them something will happen with a song or in the room that reminds him of a story and then he'll tell you a story and make sure you understand the punchline. And so it felt it felt very like, you know, familial to be in the space and create. And we had work to do. You know what I mean? Like he's a person who is very specific about what he's put into his songs and why, you know, down to like the voicing of a chord. And, you know, here I was thinking, oh, I'm going to, you know, reharmonize some things like do these little arrangements and this and that.

11:30And he was cool, a lot of the stuff that I proposed. And he would get so specific, like, oh, no, wait, wait, wait. No, that chord has to be that, those notes, because it really felt like there's like a poetry to how he puts the songs together. And because I'm not the poet, I don't know why he put that chord there instead of one that maybe sounds similar, but he does. And so it was deep to learn about that specificity of his craft that he's like, no, this chord has to be right there because it's doing something, you know, in the logic of the whole thing. And that was like a great, you know, lesson too of that, that like kind of standing up for the specifics and then also being flexible to the new voice of somebody else who's hearing something new with what you made.

12:20There is, I mean, it's, it's fascinating to hear that there's, there's these certain details that he feels need to be there because he has such a, I don't even know how to, I wouldn't know how to describe his music other than that, you know, and there is maybe just because they collaborated and I conflate them in my mind, but Wayne and Milton both have this, to me, ineffable quality to the music that's just so beautiful. and so you know just to hear that you're there and there are these sort of key yeah there's these things that are key to him and key to what he does i mean do you feel like you understand those things better now oh boy what i can what i i don't know if it's understand but i i maybe feel his archetype as a creator more as a poet than before.

13:17I mean, I remember asking him once about his songwriting process. I think I was swooning over some lyrics and just like, you know, how, but like, how did you do that? It was some image in a lyric. I was like, did you see that image first and then write it like how how did you you know what was what was that process I think I was asking more about like what was the creative process you know did you sketch it was it somebody else's idea or a story you had in mind or you know like how did you craft it and he just said I'm a poet you know that's that's what I do you know and that landed at that time in relationship to like the construction of narrative and a song and getting a little bit closer to that singularity and that specificity around the music the musical elements are like oh I'm not a poet I don't identify as a poet but I can appreciate that craft where like there's a science there's a math like what what the sensorial image that you want the person to receive you know like their imagination has to put your symbols together and there's like this like chemical reaction like imaginative chemistry where like oh they get the sensorial image yeah and it's like it's got to be those words and that sequence and that part of the poem and i i think i i perceive him doing that with all the parts all the parts his the timbre of his voice what register he's singing in, the instrumentation, the texture, the harmonic progression, the intro, the outro, you know, he's doing that kind of like architecture, you know.

15:12And I do think, I mean, I don't want to conflate them either, Wayne and Milton, because they're such distinct singularities. and that intentionality, that care into the minutiae, that care of the minutiae is something that Wayne definitely embodied in practice down to he wrote every note of his symphonic scores by hand. Now, with pen, with pen. So, you know, the whole score, all the instruments in the symphony, He wrote every note, every single note and stem and line and sharp and the pen, a hand. And the music, the symphonic music he was writing always had like a big theme, you know, a big story or feeling or idea.

16:10And he would be writing into the note. in that passage of the music it would it would be some aspect of the larger theme you know so he'd be writing into the note like the intention of that part of the music like with his hand from his heart he'd be you know like imbuing the note head with that in that idea just the way he just every yeah he would be like thinking about it like yeah this i want i want this third violinist i want this oboist to like feel this right here so i'm gonna i'm gonna write that in to the to the to the phrase and i mean then you zoom out and you're like okay a 25 minute symphonic piece that this person wrote and every single note that he wrote is like imbued with this this like message and in prayer or intention for the player yeah it's just it's mind-boggling it's like a whole ecosystem you know so anyway they're both their own singularity and maybe that depth of care and thoroughness is something that we could say you know i've witnessed um in each of them you know in their own in their own ways it's interesting too because you know i guess you know sometimes i i think there's the temptation with things with with music to just think that things just are like all i mean there are plenty of i think happy accidents that occur in music making but not everything is like some there are like i mean there are some things that are are intentional and specific to these people that they they go out of their way to imbue you know their music with when you think about when you talk about happy accidents it makes me think of um well yes there are lots of happy accidents and it's like what do you do with those happy accidents you know that that to me is where the brilliance happens because there's so much happening real time when you're playing or improvising or composing even you know um Wayne used to always say composition is improvisation slowed down so yes these things were like oh emerge yeah I know he's full of yeah he was like he would say um playing is composition sped up and composition is soloing uh slowed down um but yes these miraculous your hand you're trying to play one voicing and like oh your hand falls another way oh okay that's interesting but you know what's compelling i guess where the like brilliance lies in any artist is like what what you see in that the potential that you recognize in the quote-unquote happy accident and how you how you shift it you know how you integrate it and on the record you know we on the Milton and Esperanza record we really wanted to do this Wayne Shorter song When You Dream because of course we were thinking of him from sunup to sundown you know being in Brazil with his dear friend and Leo Genovese was there and Leo was very close to Wayne.

19:18Actually, the last Grammy Wayne won, he won with Leo Genovese. It was the first time that two jazz instrumentalists shared the same Grammy for best jazz performance. Wow. Yeah. He's an incredible player, incredible composer. You play with a lot, too. Yes. So we're in this room, you know, and all of us in the room had some kind of a connection to Wayne. And he had departed in his own last words. He said, I'll be back soon. I got to go get a new body so I can continue the mission. So we're all just, you know, with that immensity of his influence on our life and being in the studio with Milton. And we wanted to do this song.

20:05And I had done this whole arrangement. I spent weeks prepping it. And it was not working. It was just not working. And I could feel it and I could own that it wasn't working, but we just wanted to do it so bad, you know? So we're like, we keep, you know, carving at it and trying to rework the clay. It's just not happening. And then we like stopped. I felt so defeated. I was like, ah. Then I started remembering or hearing Wayne's voice. I was like, you got to have fun. you know it's supposed to we're supposed to have a hell of a good time you know in in everything you're not having fun why do it you know and it's kind of like we started sharing these like quotes and things that we had heard you know remembered him saying or doing and then we like threw the arrangement away and we said let's just go for broke you know let's just let's just play it you know the melody is alive in us and we're gonna like let whatever tumbles out there's this line from a great poem that the the the police tumbled out of the back of a van like oranges anyway it's like that feeling of like you know it's just tumbling out yeah just tumbling out whatever gravity is working on you the forces of the world working on you let it go and i you could say the whole song the whole song is like this unfurling cascade of happy accidents because we we didn't have like an arrangement in mind you know we were we were in real time responding to the cascade of you know encounters from what each of us was playing that felt fun or felt good and I feel like that what ended up on the record is this beautiful portrait of like when you usher in or you steward or you trust the kind of chaos of many brilliant people pouring out the ingredients for happy accidents to happen sequentially through the song.

22:23We'll be back with more from Esperanza Spaulding after the break. In today's super competitive business environment, The edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal. T-Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network, according to the experts at Ooclas Speed Test, and they're using that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage. With Supermobile, your performance, security, and coverage are supercharged. With a network that adapts in real time, your business stays operating at peak capacity, even in times of high demand.

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25:33That's where BetterHelp comes in. They've been helping people find their therapy match for over a decade. Because of their quality therapists that work according to a strict code of conduct, they have a 4.9 rating out of 1.7 million client session reviews. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Find the one with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10 % off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash broken. That's BetterHelp.com slash broken. I think, you know, it's like that was one of the things, you know, Quincy Jones just died too.

26:09And that was one of the things people kind of talked about with him in terms of just the way he arranged sometimes was like just getting people who were really good at what they did and you could trust and just let them go. And I guess that's a similar thing. Like if you have players who, you know, you know, bring a certain thing to the table. It's like, let them do what they do. Exactly. That's step one of good producing is. well I guess you can because sometimes you're brought into produce and it's already a group of people that you don't you know you don't necessarily have history with but I like the agency and it's almost like a composition of people you know the composition process starts with the people just what you said you know how the chemistry of the folks work you know kind of like the chemical reactions of this group of people.

27:06And, you know, I mean, Quincy was definitely a master at that. But all great band leaders, that's what they're doing. You know, that's I remember. I mean, I think about like Terry Lynn Carrington, who's a phenomenal producer, phenomenal producer, phenomenal arranger, drummer. Yes. A band leader, all the things. And it's like she can see she can like like foresee miracles between players that I think most people wouldn't give the opportunity to to flourish and she particularly kind of has that eye with like the potential of young musicians you know it's like maybe they're not quite there today but she can like sense or smell like but if I bring them into this band with that person that person you know that gift that thing that they have is going to open up and flourish in the right chemical reaction with the other parts that are here.

28:00That is maybe an easy-to-miss superpower. Yeah. Do you think you have that?

28:09I may, but I don't have a lot of opportunity to find out because I play with the same people. Ha! I have been so lucky to encounter these players through my life that are just, you know, just gems. Just so like Leo, like folks in this band, Eric Doob, Matt Stevens, Morgan Garan, Justin Tyson, Corey King. You know, these ones who I just know, like I just I trust them so deeply. and to the point where I also know they won't let me jump off any cliffs that I can't fly back from. You know what I mean? And that's also people that can give you honest critique and honest feedback. So I'll say maybe I have that skill, but I'm not putting myself in the circumstances to flex that muscle fully if it's indeed there.

29:09Probably. It's probably there. Yeah, okay. we'll find out maybe you kind of from the beginning have just been producing your own records yes I've been producing my records since the first record and in I guess 2006 whoa that's weird yeah well I guess I produced in 2005 and it came out in 2006 20 years ago that's shocking whoa when you put it like that Not to put a too fine a point on it, but 20 years ago. It is, it is. I'm like, whoa, is that true? Yeah, and that's, I don't want to say that's easier, but I feel it's a really different creature when you're producing in a way that's ushering someone else's vision into fullness.

30:04I have immense respect for the producers who do that for a living. I can't imagine producing your very first record as any easy because you're like, I mean, now you know what to expect of yourself in this situation going into produce another artist. You might not know that. But like, so I mean, in the sense of your first albums and you're kind of like an unknown entity to yourself in some ways in the studio as much as strange or someone you're producing for the first time. It's got to be scary. It had to be weird. Well, the truth about that first record is I wasn't planning for that to be some sort of like representation of me as an artist.

30:42You know, at that time in my life in music, I was playing all kinds of records. I was playing on anybody and everybody's record because I was in school. And you just you're making records left to right. You're going down to the studio from the 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. recording session. You just you're just playing and doing things. I made a lot of little demos for myself. And, you know, when this label called AYVA, A-Y-V-A, approached me like, hey, you want to do a record with with, you know, just a project that you have? I was like, cool. I had this little, you know, I don't say whatever, but just two of the many dozens of people that I was doing projects with.

31:19It was Arwan Ortiz and Francisco Mela. That's a good band. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, it gets 20 years ago. Like, we didn't know who Arwan Ortiz and Francisco Mela was going to become. They're teachers and students in Boston. So I was like, hey, you guys, you want to get in the studio and make a record for this Spanish label? Like, cool, cool, cool. And it really didn't have, like, gravitas. It didn't have, like, weight, you know? We had been doing tons of gigs around Boston with various configurations with, you know, those two folks. And so we just went in the studio, played some of the stuff we played, played some improvised stuff.

31:53Cool. No overthinking it. Yeah, it was it. I'm thinking like this is going to be some little like niche record from this niche label in Spain. Yeah. The end. Next. Kind of like, thank you. That was a nice little archive of this band, this Boston, local Boston project. Cool. Like what's next? You know, then I have played a song by a phenomenal Argentinian composer called Cuchileguizamon. I'd heard a version that Liliana Herrero and Juan Falou did of this song called Cantola de Yala. Which is on the record. Thank you. I love that song. Also check out Juan Falou and Liliana Herrero because their version...

32:33Anyways, at a Spanish management company there happened to be a man from Argentina. So when this teeny little label was shopping the album looking for a promotion, they shopped it to this other spanish company and they're like oh no you know we're not taking projects like what we'll just this free jazz stuff like whatever but then one argentina guy was like wait what why is this girl why is this black girl in boston know this argentina composer and just because of that this company reached out and they were like okay who are you what are you doing kind of thing wow and then that was the only album that i had made technically so that became my first record you know what I'm saying yeah so and what you didn't expect it to be like a calling card or no not and even looking back I'm like that is just okay yeah cool if it's almost like oh if you can I think my beautiful face helped but I was like if y 'all can listen to that I guess I can do anything really yeah I I've listened to that your first two records in a long time okay really good they're really good because I feel like the natural artists sometimes you get you get like a narrative either maybe you've you embrace a certain narrative or people overlay a narrative and i feel like sometimes like or if i if i were to just think about it like so i feel like maybe the narrative is like that you've stretched out a lot and you've obviously had you've done so much but like but that those are kind of more just straight ahead just kind of like but like really but i saw when i put them on i was like whoa i was kind of surprised at actually how good they really are Thank you.

34:12Yeah. I thought you're not great. No, I was 20 years old and not to be discounted. I don't think I receive it. It's and and hey, hallelujah. That's a I do think I do think of the ways you can come into the music industry. Just looking back now from that perspective. It's funny. It's funny. It's kind of like cheeky. It actually matches the truth of my personality. it's funny that the first record was this like weird random um kind of avant-garde trio free thing with these two black human men who were way freakier than musically way freakier than what's even on that record like i like that there's something kind of like trickstery about that being the the first calling card um and in a way you know when when anybody wants to say like oh you know you're taking it too out or like you know do that same side of the street i'd be like no i there's a precedent here there's a precedent here for being you know on the edge yeah would you do you think you would have if you if you had known that that was like gonna be oh i would have done it completely different of course do you think you would have overthought it or do you think you would have done different stuff would you have done like looking back what What do you think you would have done?

35:28Looking back, looking back. I would have put my songs, like my own songs on it. I would have sung more. I would have had arrangements, you know, more like horn arrangements and vocal arrangements. And, oh, I'm sure. I would have done that, especially if there was the lack of oversight, like there was, because it really was, it was a sweet, it was like a father-son, duo who ran this whole album and it was very there was like free artistic license like it was really just like here's the funds just bring us a record like whatever you want to do and it was a short timeline so i was like all right who's who who am i who might already have a thing with oh you two we've been doing gigs all you know all season let's go in the studio real quick um it's kind of the classic way i don't know like that's a great way i agree is that like it's not a terrible way of doing it.

36:23I just don't feel like the album's like representative of the like the portrait of the artist. And then the, not the problem, because I like the second record, Esperanza, but what I'll say is then other people's money and agenda was wrapped up in the album I was making. And so I will never dismiss or disregard the incredible support and work that that first kind of swath of like my team did for me. they fought for me so hard and all this stuff that's like i mean of course it's my hard work and my great music but like all these opportunities i keep you know tumbling time about tumbling out from those early days of my career are really thanks to you know the devotion and the like hustle and the whatever was driving these men you know in the industry who like you know it was um it was montuno productions and it was dave love and it was concord records it was uh John Burke and Mark Wexler.

37:24And, you know, these ones who like, they saw like, oh, we know what to do with this. It was that kind of like, I'm going to say they saw the commodity value. And it's not to, I'm sure they cared about me as a human on levels and they're in the music business and their job is to sell music and artists. As a commodity. As a commodity. And I remember having these conversations with the label. My first album came out on Heads Up, which hadn't yet been purchased by Concord, you know, AKA Universal, or then their, their, whatever you call it, the, the overarching companies, Universal. Conglomerate. Conglomerate.

38:03Thank you. I don't know if that's the right word. I think it is. So, um, or parent company or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So I remember, you know, I had, I wrote a lot in those days. I had like so many songs, so many arrangements. And I remember, um, the head of the, of the label be like, but we have this grid you know you you have to the songs have to fit in these categories on the grid and so you can't put that literal a grid it was like you know songs that have this vibe sounds like a ballad like and it actually became a joke between me and the musician like hold on don't mess up the grid wait now we can't make sure we don't think real is gonna get you and and this is like oh you know where's the hook of the song i was like hook of the song don't you know what kind of musician I am?