Esperanza Spalding: Who is the surprise Best New Artist?

Image Credit: Sandrine LeeFor Esperanza Spalding, the jazz bassist-singer named Best New Artist at Sunday’s Grammys (much to the shock of Justin Bieber fans, some of whom attacked Spalding’s Wikipedia page in protest), just being in the category was an honor. “I certainly did not expect to even be considered for that type of nomination, me being a little old jazz musician and everything,” she told EW in December after the nominees were announced. “Everybody and their mother-law started texting me and saying, ‘Oh my God!'”

Spalding was both pleased and bemused by the attention. “I mean, for jazz musicians, usually the recognition comes from your peers,” she said. “If someone that you really respect artistically likes your record, that’s all the award you need. But it is meaningful, and I don’t want to act like it’s nothing, that someone outside of my little jazz circle knows about me and wanted to acknowledge me.”

She bested her fellow nominees, which included Bieber, Drake, Florence + the Machine, and Mumford & Sons. Although Spalding is only well versed in one of those artists’ music (“I think Drake is really incredible”), she’s no snob. “A lot of musicians who consider themselves intellectual artists sometimes look down their noses at people who have a lot of commercial success,” she noted. “They don’t remember how much really hard work it is to be a commercially successful entertainer. So even if I’m not familiar with their music, I respect their hard work. Now I have to go check them out some more.”

The Grammys exposure should help Spalding with her next project, a more mainstream-oriented album called Radio Music Society. “I want to take a lot of the players that I know that are really phenomenal jazz musicians right now, put them in these songs, and format it in a way that will end up on the radio without compromising the soul and the core of improvised music,” she says. She is currently writing music for that album with an eye toward releasing it in late 2011.

Spalding recently supported Prince, whom she calls “a dear friend,” on his “Welcome 2 America” tour. “Anything I do with Prince is always a blast, whether it’s jamming in his basement or having a conversation about genetic biology,” she said before joining him in December. “I’m sure this will be no different. He’s a totally fun character and an incredible musician, and we’re just going to rock out and it’s going to be beautiful.”

Count it as just one more unusual honor for Spalding. If few jazz singers receive such prominent Grammy recognition, perhaps even fewer are pals with the Purple One. “Everybody knows the hype of who he is as an artist,” Spalding says. “But he also happens to be a really lovely person. He’s a really, really cool dude. If you ever got a chance to just sit and have a drink with him, you would be laughing and having a great time.”

Spalding is on the road herself now, playing four nights at Blue Note Tokyo starting Wednesday, before returning for a string U.S. dates later this month and heading abroad again in March.

(Follow the Music Mix on Twitter: @EWMusicMix.)

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