Review:

on 2012-03-22 Carlita Said:

After we all saw her win the Grammy for Best New Artist a few years ago, Esperanza Spalding has been everywhere, touring extensively, notably jamming and opening for Prince, frequenting the White House, getting the President and the First lady to bob their heads constantly at several of her performances there. Seeing Esperanza live during Grammy week this year with Teri Lynne Carrington, she breathes fresh air into the genre and wields the bass like she was born to do it.

Releasing "Chamber Music Society" in 2010, a quieter interpretation of the traditional chamber music ying, "Radio Music Society" in 2012 is its opposite yang-louder, more danceable, and more accessible. On the album cover, sitting on a boombox, she depicts a harder edge, not concerned with your or my preconceptions, appealing to the hipper artsy crowd, taking the jazz genre with her for the ride in the Mini Cooper, whether jazz purists like it or not.

Although "Radio Music Society" is her fourth album (a deluxe edition with videos supporting the songs), it feels like a sophomore effort, as the audience who recently discovered her is eager to see if she's a fly-by-night sensation. Minus the hackneyed "Friends" multi-color umbrella clip, the album trailer piqued my curiosity. Clearly getting her R&B groove on prominently this time around, introducing the album to the public with a short film and a strong first single, "Black Gold" featuring Algebra Blessett, demonstrates the main themes on the record- love, self-worth and social consciousness reign supreme.

The type of radio that would play this music isn't going to be the same one playing Rihanna or Katy Perry, more likely a retro 8-track player which also played Stevie Wonder's "Innervisions" or Michael Jackson's "Off The Wall" in the 70's. Covering Michael Jackson's "I Can't Help It" off that aforementioned album glides that point home. She throws in a big band number, "Hold Onto Me" which randomly evokes Billie Holiday, gardenia in hair style jazz but that adds to the indiscriminate "If you want me to go left, I'm going to turn right" charm about her. Q-Tip produced "City of Roses", written about quirky Portlandia, her hometown, remains one of the favs on the record as her descriptions come to life and you can picture yourself on the riverfront she vividly describes. On "Cinnamon Tree", she's reminiscent of Donnie Hathaway and Roberta Flack's "The Closer I Get to you" and encapsulates Esperanza's overall "graceful and free" spirit on the album. "Jazz ain't nothin but soul" indeed.

Rating: 8/10