Trailer: Esperanza Spaulding -- Radio Music Society

Esperanza Spaulding--"Black Gold"

Eclectic jazz songstress and upright bass virtusuo Esperanza Spalding is back with "Black Gold", the vivacious first single from her upcoming album, Radio Music Society. Unveiled just in time for the beginning of Black History Month, the song is triumphant testimony of empowerment, and is bound to become a celebatory anthem for people from all walks of life. "Black Gold" features guest vocals from neo-soul songbird Algebra Blessett.

Esperanza Spalding and the Future of Fusion

Destroying Jazz:

Esperanza Spalding and the Future of Fusion

by Michael Gonzales | Wax Poetics

With the release of Miles Davis’s revolutionary records In a Silent Way in 1969 and Bitches Brew the following year, the genius trumpeter, with the invaluable assistance of an amazing crew of young collaborators, created the musical future shock later called fusion.

Best described as improvised music that incorporates rock, funk, and soul into the grooves, fusion “revamped…Black music’s avant-garde through the use of electronics,” musician and cultural critic Greg Tate explained in 1983.

However, when rock critic Lester Bangs wrote that In a Silent Way “gives you faith in the future of music,” he had no idea the prophecy of his words. A few years later, Miles Davis’s alumni, including keyboardist Herbie Hancock, pianist Chick Corea, guitarist John McLaughlin, and saxophonist Wayne Shorter, formed their own innovative groups Head Hunters, Return to Forever, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and, of course, Weather Report.

Yet, from fusion’s early days as a noisy musical contender, many narrow-minded jazz aficionados and critics were unable to appreciate the sonic change when acoustic became suddenly antiquated. Appalled by upstarts infiltrating their music with electric guitars, Moogs, wild percussion instruments, tape loops, and synthesizers, purists referred to the new musical movement as anti-jazz. In Considering Genius (2006), jazz traditionalist and essayist Stanley Crouch stated that fusion was “the aesthetic death valley” of jazz.

Yet, while the genre became quite popular, not many women instrumentalists ventured into fusion. With the exception of Alice Coltrane, Bobbi Humphrey, Joni Mitchell, Patrice Rushen, Meshell Ndegeocello, and a few others, fusion has long remained a male-dominated field.

Read the Full Essay @ Wax Poetics