Craft Recordings is reissuing the GRAMMY Award-winning Radio Music Society with hi-res digital and 180-gram vinyl for Esperanza Spalding’s 2012 release, now celebrating its Tenth anniversary. The album has achieved near legendary status, with some of it co-produced by hip-hop artist Q Tip, and a stunning example of blurring the genres of jazz, soul, and R&B.
The highly ambitious album was a marked departure from her previous classical-infused Chamber Music Society (2010) and featured elite jazz musicians, rather oddly, especially considering the work of most of them in the decade that followed, playing in a mostly pop-oriented framework.
Consider this recording versus the improvisational nature of the recent GRAMMY nominated Live at the Detroit Jazz Festival 2017, featuring Spalding, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, keyboardist Leo Genovese, and Wayne Shorter; all but the latter who appear here. Consider also the explorative tenorist Joe Lovano who played on this date. The other key musicians are trumpeter Darren Barrett, and guitarists Jef Lee Johnson and Lionel Loueke. Joining Carrington on drums are the iconic Billy Hart and Jack DeJohnette and elite guest vocalists Gretchen Parlato, Algebra Blesset, Lalah Hathaway, and Leni Stern.
The album spawned three singles – “Black Gold,” Radio Song,” and the GRAMMY winner “City of Roses.” The pulsating hip hop-flavored beat of the “Radio Song” powered by Carrington also features strong Rhodes from Genovese on keys, punchy horns, and the guest vocalists who join Spalding in the delivering the uplifting vibe about the power of music. “Black Gold” features vocals from Blesset and Loueke with additional support from the Savannah Children’s Choir. It was a top 40 hit, attesting to both its musicality and positive message empowering young black men. (“Hold your head as high as you can”). Another key track is the Q-Tip co-produced “Crowned & Kissed” with contrapuntal horns, Carrington’s creative rhythmic textures, Genovese’s inspired pianism, Spalding’s alto vocals, and bubbling bassline.
Spalding wrote all but two tracks here – the Stevie Wonder-penned “I Can’t Help It” (a hit for Michael Jackson) and Wayne Shorter’s “Endangered Species” (which, by the way, appears on the aforementioned Live at the Detroit Jazz Festival 2017 in a much different interpretation). The former features Lovano soaring above the funky rhythms while the latter had Spalding composing the lyrics to Shorter’s Weather Report-sounding tune, one that she introduces and carries with her electric Pastorius-like bass while Genovese and the guitarists support in fusion fashion. Barrett’s muted trumpet solo provide some of the true ‘jazz’ moments on the album. DeJohnette’s distinctive drumming colors on “Let Her” and Hart’s signature cymbal work on “Hold on Me” accent Spalding’s sultry, bluesy-toned vocals which is also backed by The American Music Program Big Band which also appear on another two tracks. One of these is the undulating, “City of Roses,” which earned a GRAMMY for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) and is the essence of Spalding’s clear alto vocals, punctuated with burning tenor.
While terms like “pop” and “breezy” are usually associated with this release, there is some serious messaging taking place as well. “Vague Suspicions,” which has a solemn tone unlike most of the tracks, points to the war in Afghanistan while the less-than-two-minutes “Land of the Free,” which may come across casually as an interlude to some listeners, has Spalding singing about the 2011 exoneration of Cornelius Dupree, who spent 30 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. It segues directly to the aforementioned “Black Gold,” further indicating that Spalding was not shy about addressing social, political, and racial issues.
Listening to this music now, a decade later, still leaves us admiring the production techniques, the fusion of genres, the wide diversity and inclusiveness of the material, but mostly its daring nature. Little did Spalding know that she, along with Robert Glasper’s Black Radio, issued around the same time, were to blaze a path for the likes of Kamasi Washington, The West Coast Get Down and countless bands who took her cues on fusing hip hop with neo-soul and jazz.
