Alive at the Village Vanguard

Album review

Beginning as a musically gifted child who performed with the Chamber Music Society of Oregon at age five and gaining wider acclaim as a standup jazz bassist and as one of the youngest instructors in the history of her alma mater Berklee College of Music, Esperanza spalding now has her sights on the more difficult path of jazz singer.  In this pre-pandemic duo set at NYC's Village Vanguard—well-recorded by distinguished engineer James Farber—Spalding and pianist Fred Hersch open with George and Ira Gershwins' "But Not For Me."  Spalding's singing is playful and airy, which seems to work against her as it adds little insight or artistry.  There's a long interlude of scat singing on a cover of Charlie Parker's "Little Suede Shoes" but she becomes more of a talker than a hold-that-note song stylist as the song progresses. Hersch expertly stays with her through the banter.  After an opening where he ornaments Spalding's scatty bleeps and boops on Thelonious Monk's "Evidence," Hersch gets to stretch and play jumpy, beautifully harmonized lines.  He plays soft and lyrical on the Sammy Cahn/Jule Styne classic "Some Other Time" where Spalding gets serious and shifts into crooning. Alive is another in the long tradition of jazz albums recorded at this redoubtable club, a fascinating snapshot of a mid-career Spalding who sees the possibility in a jazz/spoken word hybrid, but remains raw and uncertain in finding her place out front. © Robert Baird/Qobuz