Jazz. It’s a fantastic word, lending itself to a revered style of music. But defining it? Good luck. Depending whose side you’re on, jazz denotes a level of purity and technical achievement. You can’t just be a jazz musician. You’ve got to qualify. This is different to, say, rock music – plenty of bad rock bands out there, but no arbitrating guild deliberating over who’s allowed within the genre borders.
Anyway, we digress. It’s Esperanza Spalding at the Forum for the opening night of Melbourne Jazz Festival. Spalding essentially makes pop music – her set is composed of songs with familiar structures, repeated melodic refrains and easily memorable lyrics. But whether or not this impinges on her qualification as a jazz performer is beside the point. Though, her affiliation with both jazz and pop does make her an ideal act for jazz boffins to bring their kids to (and vice versa).
Spalding’s presenting Emily’s D+Evolution. That’s the name of her latest album, which works fine as a piece of recorded music. Tonight we see that it also works fine as a theatrical live music display, with Spalding and her three backing vocalists partaking in sometimes amusing, sometimes tacky role-play. But that’s just it: something doesn’t quite add up with this album. And while it mightn’t be the same ingredient that’s lacking, this show fails to make us fall fully, deeply into Spalding’s (or Emily’s) world.
There’ll be no complaints about the musicianship, however. Spalding’s the star, on 5-string fretless bass and lead vocals (and occasionally Rhodes piano). She’s seemingly invented a bass guitar with no bum notes. The old reproval regarding jazz music is that it’s all bum notes. But this show is slickly prepared and highly dependent on precision. Spalding’s fretboard movement is busy as hell, but she barely even glances at her hands. She’s too busy making eyes with the backing vocalists and the audience, and singing her guts out. Guitarist Matt Stevens and drummer Justin Tyson ain’t no slouches either, and they’re largely excluded from the theatrics in order to fulfil their demanding instrumental tasks.
When the opportunity to improvise shows up (which is only rare) the trio succeed at stamping all haughty thoughts out of the arena to prove they know best. Loaded with the lengthiest section of improvisation, Funk the Fear is the high point of the setlist. It’s a fun song with an obvious, ‘you only live once’ message. The title refrain also alludes to a swear word; something to get the kids excited. Meanwhile, the extended jam allows the backing vocalists to engage in an onstage dance-off, which eventuates in their entry into the crowd.
But elsewhere, while there’s much to marvel at from a technical standpoint and many melodies to get stuck your head, the root uncertainty of Spalding’s songwriting becomes apparent. Of course, pop and jazz music can combine to great effect, but her songs don’t seem to know what they want to be. They attempt to include many complex ideas while also straining for accessibility. In the process, some of the life – the blood and guts, the stuff that really communicates – gets left out.
WORDS BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
PHOTO BY ZO DAMAGE
LOVED: Spalding’s magnetic belt clip holding her bass.
HATED: 5-string basses, ordinarily.
DRANK: Yeah, but.
