Wednesday 4 May 2016

Esperanza Spalding - Emily's D+Evolution, album review

All So Good

Opening track Good Lava is outstanding, a jagged, dissonant guitar attack under which the bass romps and over which the vocal is dancing gloriously in swoons and staccato mixes, a chorus linking. This is complex and virtuoso by Spalding, on that bass and singing. I have been listening to the album for some time, enjoying too much to review.

This is followed by a slower, mellower Unconditional Love, the bass laying longer pulsing notes, and Spalding still moving up and down her vocal register, a soul caress compared with the opening hot jazz. By this stage I would normally be mentioning precursor sounds, and you can hear echoes, but this is so fresh and pleasing I’m not. Third Judas takes us into a bass-walking jazz stroll, solo vocal and spurts of vocal chorus again mingled and complementary. Fourth Earth to Heaven pumps again, more complexities in vocal run-a-rounds and shifting paces that impress.

It is just all so good. All of it just so good. So good, just all of it. 


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