Esperanza Spalding Concert Review

This concert report will be on Esperanza Spalding Live at Austin City Limits. The venue mimics that of a outdoor auditorium by having a huge mural of downtown Austin behind stage, and if just seeing it for the first time from a video, one would think it was outdoors. The venue was pretty large, the size of a large auditorium, and the acoustics were good and there was little to no echoing.Though most of Spalding’s songs fall under the genre of jazz, she would rather not be called a jazz artist due to it limiting her. Her style, as heard in the concert, has many jazz aspects but with hints of soul, and which she mentions in her performance of her first song “Jazz Ain’t Nothin’ But Soul.” Instrumentation included keyboards played by Leo Genovese , guitar played by Ricardo Vogt, drums played by Otis Smith III, and bass (double and electric) played by Spalding. Vocals were also done by everyone as well. She and her band/vocalist performed a total of five songs, and during all the songs, I notice while Spalding was singing was that she truly gets into her performances. Her face is filled …show more content…
Esperanza’s voice ranged anywhere from soft to raspy to hard. Although she can sing skat like Ella Fitzgerald, she has blended it to fit her style more by smoothing the notes. If that makes since. She demostrates in the first song and instead of sticking with the normal “scoop be doop” sound, she replaces it with “la la la”. The song had a moderate tempo and solos from the piano and double bass. It also had a few cases of rhythm changes which is also heard in her other songs like “Sunlight.” In comparison to the first song, “Sunlight” definitely had more of a soulful vibe. Spalding’s singing is fast and sharp, but not in a harsh way. However, she would cut off a word or really note instead of holding it. She also switches from the double bass to her