Submerged: Esperanza Spalding in the mode of Emily's D+Evolution. Photo: Supplied
by John Shand
June 5, 2016
No show has had a high-contrast beginning, middle and end quite like this. Of course it's not often one's middle name becomes the catalyst not just for a new persona, but for a whole body of work. Esperanza Spalding took time out from her success as a singer, songwriter and bassist in the area where jazz grinds hips with r'n'b. While kicking back she let her inner Emily come out: an alter ego who generated Emily's D+Evolution, a batch of songs sounding rather like Joni Mitchell collaborated with Robert Fripp.
Gone were the breezy Latin/jazz/funk grooves and the wild Afro hair of the woman called Esperanza, replaced by the braids and oversized spectacles of a girl called Emily.
We actually watched it happen. An Afro-ed Esperanza glided on stage in a gown the size of a family tent. This she pulled over her head and, while some music boiled around her, she pupated into Emily. It was a stunningly theatrical opening and way of jettisoning all that the first decade of her career represented, to become the cute, girlish, gawky and rocky Emily.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/esperanza-spalding-review-girlish-emily-shaded-by-a-pupation-and-a-fly-20160605-gpbvch.html#ixzz4AoLZ0uFK
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