Esperanza Spalding

Bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding seems crucially free of the Wynton Marsalis disease that's weighed so heavily on three decades' worth of young jazz musicians: while respectful of musical tradition, she is in no way a purist, and has little interest in staying within the boundaries of only one style of music. Having taught herself the violin at age five (then picking up guitar, oboe, clarinet and cello before discovering the bass in high school), Spalding was classically trained through childhood. But by her mid-teens, Spalding was fronting the Portland indie-pop trio Noise For Pretend, releasing two albums on Hush Records in the early 2000s. While studying at Boston's Berklee College of Music, she toured with the likes of Patti Austin, Pat Metheny and Joe Lovano. Her first solo album, 2006's Junjo, was a Latin-themed piano trio record that introduced the wordless vocals (closer in spirit to bossa nova's voice-as-instrument aesthetic than old-fashioned Ella Fitzgerald-style scatting) that would become one of her trademarks. 2008's higher-profile Esperanza was a more varied mix of Brazilian, jazz, pop and R&B elements sung in English, Spanish and Portuguese; a massive hit in jazz terms, it stayed on Billboard's jazz chart for a remarkable 62 weeks. As if to stress her independence from jazz tradition, Spalding played live with the likes of Prince and The Roots, then announced that her next two records, Chamber Music Society and Radio Music Society, would reflect her interests in classical and pop music. In a welcome surprise, Spalding won the 2010 Best New Artist Grammy, winning the enmity of millions of teenage Justin Bieber fans.