The Paul Wells Show - Grammy winner esperanza spalding on inspiration and collaboration

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

Grammy-winning bass player and singer esperanza spalding (she does not capitalize her first and last names) brought a jazz quartet to Ottawa recently to play with the National Arts Centre Orchestra. While she was here, she joined Paul onstage to talk about collaboration, avoiding the pitfalls of success at a young age, and working with legendary musician Wayne Shorter on his first opera.

This week, a conversation with an extraordinary creative force. Yo-Yo Ma guested on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, and he was playing one of the Boccello suites. And I can remember the sensation of hearing that sound for the first time. It was like a bodily experience all over my body. The bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding. I'm Paul Wells. Welcome to The Paul Wells Show. In 2011, the competition for the Best New Artist Award at the Grammys in Los Angeles was fierce. That's the year Mumford & Sons was nominated, and Justin Bieber, and Drake. But the winner was a 26-year-old jazz bass player from

Portland, Oregon named Esperanza Spalding. By then she was already the youngest ever bass instructor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. She'd played and sung at the Obama White House. And since she won that Grammy, Esperanza Spallding has gone on to all sorts of musical adventures. One of the themes of this podcast is creativity. So when Esperanza Spaulding came to Ottawa this summer to play and sing with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, I asked to meet her. We spoke in front of an audience at the NAC. She talked about having a chance to become a pop star and passing it up, about working with the saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter, one of the great musicians of our time, about meeting Jody Mitchell, and about the challenges of leadership, which also happens to be a theme of this podcast. After the break,

my conversation with Esperanza Spaulding. Esperanza Spaulding, welcome to Ottawa. Thank you. You're bringing a quartet of sort of long-time collaborators, people you've worked with a lot, and you're bringing them to essentially a bunch of strangers. You're bringing a box of arrangements to an orchestra. Is that a hard thing to reconcile?

That's what we're doing right now. Yeah. You know, music is life. And we trust that we'll be able to connect through the circumstance. And so in a way, in music, nobody's a stranger because you have a common language. And there's also a kind of common devotion that travels ahead of you like a quantum field. You know when you encounter a musician, there's a certain set of shared experiences, even if you study completely different quote-unquote genres. And with this quartet, there are human beings and musicians that I think operate in a similar

kind of ideology around what musicianship is. And surprisingly, I think that any sort of hesitancy or nervousness from an orchestra was like, ooh, what's this going to be like to play with quote unquote jazz musicians? Which is not a term that originated from jazz musicians. It was like laid onto this social music to have a signifier for it when it traveled out in the world as a commodity. But anyways, this quote unquote jazz music, what's it going to be like to play with these quote unquote jazz musicians? My experience so far has been that orchestra players are pleasantly surprised to feel themselves musically met.

We're not there to do a different thing. The way that the drums and the piano and the bass and the saxophone and my voice function, it's like we want to feel like water, like buoying what has been written for the orchestra to play. It's hard to describe this to a person who, well, you probably played an instrument before in your life, but it's like you're playing the same thing that you played every day or for the last week of rehearsal, but all of a sudden, a piano player comes and plays a different chord

underneath what you're used to hearing and a completely other dimension of what you know comes out, and that's sort of what we intend to do or strive to do as a quartet, weaving ourselves through the notes on the page that the orchestra is playing. Okay. Speaking of meetings, do you remember your first meeting with Wayne Shorter? He's a god to musicians.

And then you actually had to get something done with him. How did that work out in the first instance? It was totally magical. I have to use that word, and I'm not using it lightly. I had obviously loved Dwayne Shorter's music for as long as I had my own taste in music, you know, and just thinking about him at my house in New Jersey, I started composing this song. I never met him, but I'd been listening to him a lot. I wrote this song, and it kind of had this melodic shape and harmonic movement that felt inspired by Wayne Shorter.

Just on a whim, I titled it,rayola. And I don't know why. You know, it's just, you know, you're in a creative process. It's like, sometimes I'm sure when you're writing copy for something, you just kind of put a name on it and then later discover like, hmm, that was a really good signifier for what's coming. Anyways, I met him because we had the same agent at the time, and I go into the living room and he's sitting on the end of the couch toward the window, which is the window where he's watching, waiting for aliens to land, of course. And he's got this architect's folder next to him like what you would carry massive architectural drawings in.

And I just asked, what is that, Mr. Shorter? He's like, oh, he pulls it out and puts it on a coffee table. And it's all these paintings, unframed paintings, just back to back, face to face, front to back, no sort of protective barrier in between them. And they're so phenomenal. no sort of protective barrier in between them. And they're so phenomenal. The way that light is captured in them, the depth and the accuracy of human features. I mean, it's incredible.

Kind of like pointillism a little bit. And I'm looking at these like, what are these? Oh, these are my paintings. Just through the decades. And they're just so nonchalantly thrown in this folder. I'm like, these should be hermetically sealed somewhere. You know what I mean? And he's just kind of leaping through them and he's like, yeah, you can touch them. I'm not going to miss the opportunity to touch a masterpiece, you know?

So I'm like kind of touching them and a little greasy, which is even scarier that they're just like face to face back to front. And I asked him what they were made out of like what what did you use is it past days like oh it's crayon you know like Crayola crayon and um I said Mr. Schroeder I just wrote a piece for you called Crayola and his way as in everything's like like, yeah. Of course he did. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. That's what he always says. When something like that happens, that's what I'm talking about. So there wasn't any particular agenda, you know, in that meeting, but we felt an affinity towards each other.

And then I asked permission to put lyrics to his song, Endangered Species. And he had to read them to approve it. and he did approve them, and he liked them, so then asked me to put lyrics to, or libretto, I guess you would call it in that context, to Gaia. That's really when we started collaborating. That word doesn't feel accurate to describe what we do, because the word is such a catch all, we say collaborating. it was like a working mentor. It was like an internship slash mentorship, I would say, of me trying to bring language into what he had written. And then that same process continued through Iphigenia, but like 3D, no, like 7D

through a kaleidoscope. Is imposter syndrome a problem in that kind of? Is the sense that I don't know who should be doing this, but it shouldn't be me? Or are you confident enough to come up for something like that? I think a little imposter syndrome is really healthy, as long as it's not debilitating. And I wish there were more subtle terms to describe that feeling of like, I'm reckoning with the immensity of this and I don't feel equipped.

And I was not equipped to approach that work. And I wasn't equipped to approach the opera work either but then it's helpful to remember that like I come from a lineage of people musically who are making something out of nothing like that's how it kept emerging that there was no paradigm or framework for how to communicate what needed to be communicated with the medium and the instruments and the playing environments and the power dynamics available to these creatives. And so they just make it, you know.

And I think for all of us, particularly on the opera project, we were all reckoning with this dramatic realization like, wow, we don't know what we're doing or how to do this. And then Wayne would always say, well, neither did Monteverdi. There wasn't a precedent before Monteverdi came along. So there could be a well-backed up illusion or delusion that because I've done a lot of opera or I've studied a lot of opera, I'm prepared to go do this Wayne Shorter opera. But that wouldn't be true because what he wanted to do was so, woo, at a right angle

to most opera that has been created up to this point. I actually think it would have been like a challenge to approach the project with a sense of like, oh, we know how this is going to go. So something about how, quote unquote, imposter syndrome, if we like work with it, embrace it, it can be like a celebration of the fact that there's space to try this in a new way, because I don't know how this is supposed to go or another way of saying that is like you don't have to know the rules to break them you know. What happens next with that opera Iphigenia? We're going to put it into the swamp into a nutrient rich swamp and step back and let the sun do what it does. And we're going to presume that it's a lotus flower which thrives on filthy water.

Murk and muck and brack. I know that sounds like an allegory, but that's probably the closest allegory to what we're actually about to do. Which is take what we created and say, okay, that was that in the controlled environment of, let's say, the greenhouse, which is sort of like the equivalent of a proscenium stage with this very precise budget and very precise timeline. And the set has to fit into a truck and like, guh, guh, guh, guh, guh. But Wayne said after he saw it, now I want it to be an intergalactic carnival. And so we're like, okay, great. So we're now going to relieve it from the constraints of needing to be able to tour,

at least this is the plan, and put it into the most nutrient dense environment we can possibly imagine and just show up and grow it in that environment. And in another way, it's like one of the beautiful things about opera as a medium is you have this blueprint for it that anybody else can work with, right? That's part of the joy of creating a work like that or a play or even a song. So I'm also excited for this era and future of it moving on where hopefully student groups or companies somewhere take the libretto and take the music and all of the challenges or there's a lot of prompts in the libretto because it really is asking anybody who stages it to release the tyranny of being the singular storyteller,

which to me has to do with like declaring what the ending is going to be. So there's these prompts in the libretto that demand or say invites whoever embodies it next to bring their own imagining, their collective imagining of what is going to happen into the staging and even into the story. And that's so exciting. I'm more excited to see what other people do with it. Well, I'm excited to see what happens in the swamp, but I also, I'm just as excited to see what happens when somebody else takes it on. so it's a bunch of different parallel and I get the impression not at all controlled development processes is there a venue for the swamp the we're gonna probably make a venue in the town that hopefully

supports us to do this next iteration I'm being like a little bit vague because we're right in those conversations right now and I don't want to leave anybody out or falsely affirm a relationship that isn't on paper yet. But, I mean, it's not yet, as far as I know, being developed by another group. That's more like the future of the project, the future life of the project.

And the way that we would cultivate the next iteration. I mean, I was speaking the abstracts. I don't know if you've made opera before. I don't know who listening has made opera. It's a very particular, woo, undertaking or getting taken under. It feels more like that. Like tending anything, it really demands kind of full attention. So when we go to this next stage, it'll be the director's main

project. The creative producing team will come back and that will be what we're doing for those months. You know what I mean? But I think it's going to be less about just trying to get it up on his feet and out and everywhere, which was the priority, partly because I wanted Wayne to be able to see it. And he was having some really severe health challenges. So we were like, let's just get this on his feet. And now it's like, okay, it's alive. Now we've got to raise the thing. You know what I mean?

But, yeah, it will be, again, like a kind of all-consuming project when it comes out. Ooh, and it's really good. And is there, and I get the impression I'm once again scooping a process, so probably not going to get a straight answer, but is there a landing point? Is there a second premiere scheduled at some point? I see what you mean. Yeah, there will be. Definitely. Because we want

to share it, you know. Obviously. We're doing this so that the rest of the world can see this intergalactic carnival that Wayne is seeing in his mind. It's funny. I mean, I've got a personal resonance. The first time I heard him perform was in Detroit in 1987.

Terry Lynn Carrington was in the band who will be the drummer tomorrow night. And he did a little workshop, open town hall session like this, I think the next day. And someone in the audience said, what kind of musicians are you looking for in your band. And there was this like long pause. And then he just said, astronauts. And then he didn't elaborate. And I've been thinking about that for like 30 years. Yeah.

And he's still looking for astronauts. Exactly. We'll come back to my conversation with Esperanza Spalding in a minute. I want to take a moment to thank all of our partners, the National Arts Centre who hosted today's conversation, the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, our founding sponsor, TELUS, our title sponsor, Compass Rose, and our publishing partners, the Toronto Star and iPolitics. Let's back up a bit. You're from Portland, Oregon. How did you come into music? How did music find you? I remember singing Harmony to my mom when we were walking the dogs.

That's my first musical memory, other than the Stevie Wonder and Harry Belafonte Christmas records that I would beg to keep out, pass when the Christmas box went away. And then in 1989, Yo-Yo Ma guested on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, and he was playing one of the Bach cello suites. I had never heard anything like that before, and I was hit. I think when we're still little babies, all of our sense of eros is fully turned on everywhere. And I can remember the sensation, the stimulation of hearing that

sound for the first time. It was like a bodily experience all over my body. And it wasn't just chills. It was like this kind of non-sexual, total stimulation, you know? And I don't mean eros in the sense of the erotic. I mean eros in the sense of the erotic I mean eros in the sense of the nervous system dilating you know in this sense of like increased sensory input that feels so pleasurable and I I can really distinctly remember that sensation in my body and I was just like what is that you know I'm thinking like what is even going on? What are those sounds with that instrument? What? And I asked for that. I asked, I want to do that. And the music programs that were available didn't have a cello for all the years I was in it. So then I played violin. They were like,

you can just play this for, and then you can upgrade to the cello. And they never had cellos my size. So I was just like, doing the violin, doing the violin, doing the violin. And then I finally did have a cello, but then I was like 12 and I was already into this violin. So I was like, ugh. But then I got exposed to the sound of the acoustic bass

when I was 15. And then I didn't care about the violin anymore. The acoustic bass, the sound of it opened this doorway into improvised music and the community of improvising musicians, which feels really important to articulate for anybody in music or curious about music, it's as much your community as it is your personal practice. And I really didn't feel in with the community of this classical music education track. There was never resonance.

And I didn't understand that the resonance was important until I got into the improvised scene, quote-unquote, and just felt a completely different, like, cultural climate that felt like it matched who I was, you know, who I am. And then that, obviously, I don't want to say the rest was history, but it's not like, you know, I became a jazz musician. It's more like then I was aware of what more was possible. The rest wasn't necessarily history, but it was a fairly accelerated timeline. I mean, you start playing the bass at 15 and at 20 you're teaching it at Berkeley.

When did you get into Berkeley and sort of how conversant were you in the jazz language when you got there? in the jazz language when you got there? I mean, I think having like 10 years in music before was a really helpful head, not head start, but just foundation. And also when I started playing bass, not knowing there was like a pedagogy for this improvised music, I just started pursuing like a classical bass track, because I thought that's what you were supposed to do to learn an instrument, which is super helpful, obviously. It's not the only way to gain proficiency, but

I started studying classical bass, and then I got to Berklee at 17, you know, doing whatever I was doing. I mean, I don't really remember those years very much. They were so full in both ways of the double entendre of the word. And I just, I don't know. I forget the word you used, but I understood it as proficiency. And I think in that music, in the music I was playing, it was less about like, how much technical facility do you have? And it's more about like, can you be functional? Can you serve the function of this music?

And it is a social music. It's a functional music. It's about transmitting something and creating like an atmosphere and supporting the storytellers, right? Quote unquote soloists. But it's originating from African lineages, from many lineages. I'll just say ancient lineages of the storytellers surrounded by the musicians.

We all have that somewhere in our lineage, somewhere back there. So really it's like, are you helping the storyteller bring through the message and captivate the audience and keep them connected and tracking what's being communicated? And I was able to do that really early. I could listen deeply and I could support harmonically and rhythmically what was being told and shared. And I think that's why I got a lot of gigs.

Also because I'm cute and I was an anomaly, you know what I mean? That only takes you so far when you're playing with people who are really there to do the job of the music. And I got a chance to play with elders really, really early on. It was such a blessing. I mean, these pillars in the Portland community, black musicians, elder musicians who were like the strew line to the social legacy of this music. And they were like, no and yes, you know, this is how you do this. That's how you don't do this. And I came with that, you know what

I mean, to quote unquote college, really just to Boston and was able to then again you know once you can serve the function and people learn that you really are there and you want to you want to know and you want to learn I was invited into a lot of opportunities to play and learn one thing about really serious musicians is that they are not Wynton Marsalis once used the term unimpressed, right? They're not, Joe Lovato did not hire you because you were really good looking, right? He hired you because he figured you could deal with what that band was going to require.

And that's probably a handy reality check as your career starts to skyrocket. Both are a handy reality check as your career starts to skyrocket. Both are a handy reality check. Also, I mean, I feel also just reckoning with commod metric of what is beautiful, which in an industry equates to like what is sellable. reality check as like, I ain't going to get no gig unless I can play because I know a lot of, a lot of, most of fully devoted musicians who can play their life off who aren't getting the gigs. So it's really both. And I continue to articulate what I'm articulating now for the sake of other young women who are coming up in the music.

And also just to, maybe for my own sanity, I also know what's going on here. You know what I mean? Not here, maybe, but in the quote unquote commodified field of showing up and offering this thing called music, which is still a mystery. You know, there's other forces at play and I don't like to let them go unnoticed because it's easy to mix up how the forces of commodifying beauty and commodifying gift how the forces of commodifying beauty and commodifying gift like interweave with the forces of the gift, like the forces of the music and the resonance

and the connection that people are attracted to in the music like they can get all like, for those of you listening, I'm like moving my hands in a very discombobulated, messy way. And ultimately, I'm beholden to the music. So when there's this pull to try to cater to the forces of commodification and like the beauty that promotes or that propels the commodification of something sacred. I try to always like, ooh, no, no, that's not what I'm beholden to. I'm just playing that game so that I can do what I want to do and what I'm here to do. I don't mean that in a grand prophetical way. It's just like, I have a life and what I want to do is like see what all can happen from showing up to that

relationship to the music and the growth in the music and the offering of the music and sometimes their arm wrestle the music and the other forces of you know there's not a quick there's not a quick term for it, but you know what I mean. The culture. Yeah, but... Culture is so many things, though. It's not even culture. It's like market forces. It's, in a way, this kind of weird human psychosis of, like,

I want to pay to access something beautiful. Like, that's abstract when you really think about it. It's really weird. But we are like that. We're wired like that. And so it's something about, like, either just that certain force of, like, the human psyche that's capitalized on, you know what I mean?

So let me bring it down to the, obviously, one of the big concrete cases in your own career, which is there you are in Los Angeles one night and they ask you to come up on the stage because you just won a Grammy, not for jazz instrumental solo, but for best new artist. And I suspect that wasn't the culmination of any set of hopes that you had for your life. But you must also have been aware that there was an express train leaving the station at that point and you could get on it and you could just live a different kind of life was that tempting i didn't know how to get on that train yeah i feel like i'm 37 now i think i was 26

when that happened and and now for 37 i feel like i see that freight train like way on the horizon and the steam trail is almost dissipating in the sky. I'm like, wow, what was that? Because I didn't recognize that it was a freight train. I just thought it was so random and such an anomaly. And I didn't know how to get it on it anyway. And then it was gone.

I was like, cool. Okay, that was that. Now that's always going to be in the Wikipedia page. Like, all right. Yeah. And I also think part of it was, I know part of it was happening is when those of us who are members of NARES, which is the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which is the body of what we see the nose of

in the Grammys, highly decorated, pierced, and painted nose, we're voting usually for our peers in fields that we make music in. And then you can also vote in these popular categories. So I am positive that what was happening is in all the years of voting, nobody had ever seen like an instrumentalist, not to mention like a, let's say, improvisation-based or like coming from that particular lineage of like Black American improvisation based social protest liberation music and they were like I'm gonna vote for her probably whether or not they even really knew my music it was more like how did she get on here like oh my god I have to I have to show up you know and that's fine

it's beautiful it's beautiful that all those forces converge and also just as a testament to the commodifying forces in the world, when you go backstage after you get a Grammy, you go backstage and there's this little photo booth interview area where the person who just won is supposed to stand with their Grammy and you are all nervous and speechless. And then they ask you questions, and you get this photo. And they brought Justin Bieber in to be in that with me. And it didn't really land when I was there, because I was 26. My family had all come just for the party.

And it was happening over. Like, what just happened? And then he touched my hair without asking. It was just like, it was just emblematic of so much of what's completely backwards about the industry. Of like, this moment on its own isn't sellable enough. So we have to bring in something that makes it sellable so that this video will like travel. You know what I mean? And yeah, it was just like, wow, cool.

Not on his part, you know what I mean? He was a little kid. He was like, he looked about 10 at the time, you know what I mean? He probably was 15 or 16 or something. He wasn't thinking about that. They just said, go over there. And so he did what he's supposed to do in his job, you know what I mean? Just again, and so that was also some sort of like window into the express train

and feeling like that probably wasn't the train I really wanted to be on anyway. I've been having a great time since then. You know what I mean? the only like real dimension of being a person in the world making things that you might think you lose if you don't get on that

express train is money and which isn't nothing no but something about yeah there's no guarantee on that quote unquote express train anyway. And it's like your life, your life is the most close thing you have to experience. You know, every day, all day, every day, you are in your life.

You're in it. And something about the compromise that you had to make to maybe access some of the money available in that express train, are they worth it for you? That's it. Are they worth it for you? And for some of us, the answer is no. You know, I didn't have to make those choices because I wasn't on that train. But I'm pretty sure just seeing what some beings I know who did take that path, like have to navigate, I'm pretty sure I would have said no a lot. I want to ask about your conception of yourself as a leader. I mean, the music is full of people who are happy to fulfill a role, who are very proficient at fulfilling a role, and go home and live quiet, peaceful lives. It's another level of challenge when you're out front constantly proposing things

to your colleagues, to the audience. Why do you suppose you wanted to be in that role? And what challenges does it present? You can, it's okay. Leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership. It is like a ship. It's like a thing that you find yourself on. It's already moving. And you can work with the wind and the land masses you see in your immediate midst and the crew that you have.

You can swap the crew. But it kind of feels like something that is already going on. I don't know. I never felt like I was like, I want to be a leader. I just was doing things and making things and people are going along with this. I was like, okay. Joe Lovano, who I've mentioned before, another great saxophonist whose band you played in 11 years ago or so. In that context, you're the bassist. He calls the tunes, he hires the other musicians, you play the bass. Oh, I see something in what you're saying. I mean, I'm learning something from what you're saying.

So Joe Lovano is a person who hires musicians who are, hmm, like, he writes music that requires you to show up and like compose your portion of the music and he really trusts. I think he always says this, he's like, if you're on the bandstand, I trust you. So he doesn't like when people ask him what you should be doing. He's like, if you're up here, I trust you. So he's really a band leader that wants you to lean into whatever the prompts are on the page. Maybe it's something about there's not very much of a difference maybe between like steering the way that a show is going to go and being in a band with somebody like Joe Lovano or from what I know

of Wayne Shorter's quartet and playing with him, playing with somebody like that where he's like he's asking you to come as a composer and an arranger and a band leader, because the thing is moving forward through the collective composing and visioning of everybody. You know what I mean? Joe Livano has veto power, but that's about it. There's one other voice, one other name that i wanted to put in front of you um because i was listening to your album emily's d plus evolution the other night yeah and um which is closer to being a rock album you play more electric bass yeah yeah and my sense every music all along has been she doesn't really sound like anything.

Except Esperanza Spaulding. And then I thought, okay, I'm going to reject that. If she sounds like something, who does she sound like? And Wayne Shorter's name came to mind pretty quick. And so did Joni Mitchell's. Have you met Joni Mitchell? Do you know Joni Mitchell? Yes, I have.

Tell me about Joni Mitchell. Yes, I have. Tell me about Joni Mitchell. She's, you know, you already know. I don't have to say this. You already know what Joni Mitchell's like. She's totally magical, realized. She's a realized human.

And we all have them in us. We all kind of know what we are and who we are, but we make choices through our life and allow a certain proportion of like, I'm just contorting to do what I think needs to be done. And I'm really going to be myself and permeate everything I do with this essential nest that is my being. Not only that, I'm going to make it a priority to develop that and find all the ways that that nest can expand into whatever I put my hands on. And Joni Mitchell and Wayne Shorter and some other people I've had the privilege of encountering, most of whom y'all never heard of before.

Not because you don't know stuff, but just because they're just people, you know what I mean, in the world. Just like all the names. Anyways, Johnny Mitchell and all those others, they're realized. They have synthesized what they do in the world. I was going to say synthesized, but it's not synthesized. That's like putting two different things together or multiple things together. It's like they've so consistently allowed who they are to be the driver and the priority in any decisions they make that what we encounter of them is like a complete realization of who and what they are as humans. And when you're in the presence of somebody like that, it feels like, oh, this is magical. It's not magical.

It's a practice. And it was a decision that they made and this trust that they had. And it was a willingness to go through, you know through the slings and arrows that one encounters when you live like that. And I love her voice and I particularly love her way with words. It makes sense to me that she's a painter because of how she composes with language. She creates all these sensory images that to me are very similar to the images she puts in the paintings.

And you already know about Wayne Shorter. And I think if you knew who I had been around year to year, you would hear the influence of everybody in my work. You know what I mean? It's just I spent a lot of time with folks who maybe are less known or into things that are less, you might not think I'd be into because of what I look like. Not you specifically, but humans. But I hear everything in my work.

I hear what I've been checking out. I hear what I've been reading. I hear who I've been playing with. Inevitably so. It's like you can tell when hear what I've been reading. I hear who I've been playing with. Inevitably so. It's like you can tell when we're around who raised you. You know what I mean? And I welcome that. You know what I mean?

There's no need to pretend like, you know, I'm just original. Oh, and there's a really cool reworking of the term original, which I really love and identify with. So I can't remember the name of this book. I apologize. But essentially, it was like a retrospective about an arts educator's conference. And one of the first themes that came up in the conference was originality. And a lot of these North American teachers were like, yeah, originality. We try to imbue in our students this sense of like, you have something unique, you have something new and unknown before that you can bring forth and bring it to the world. And this sense of it being like novel, you know, and an anomaly.

And these other teachers who were working, well, I'm not going to go into details because I can't remember the details, but basically not working from a North American, Western European pedagogy perspective were saying, we think of original as showing the origin and knowing the origin of what you're creating. And so they were saying, with us and our students, original means honoring the origin of whatever you're creating and knowing the origin and acknowledging the origin. And I love that. That feels so true, and it's such a relief. And I love that.

That feels so true and it's such a relief. And I actually think sinking into that sense of what your originality is actually highlights more of what's you in the milieu of everything that made you. And so I love it when somebody's like, were you checking out those Shostakovich piano trios and i'm like yes i was thank you for noticing i'm i'm grateful that this being that i love so much that i've studied so much has like influenced my work and permeated through you know yeah there's doing your own thing, and there's being welcomed by your peers and your elders and your ancestors. I've been, I spent part of the lockdown trying to play some piano, man. Yeah. And when you play churny exercises on the piano, and knowing that he got it from Beethoven and that everyone since him has been busting their

head on some churning is to say the least that doesn't feel constraining yeah right it feels like you're you're entering a mighty river yeah yeah I know exactly what you mean it's a beautiful thing it's a beautiful beautiful thing and It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. And it's also something about trusting the value of something that reaches you. Like, wow, this has gone through so many hands and so many beings who really dedicate their lives like, what's going to help people grow on piano? So it's also kind of a relief. You feel that somebody before you vetted it for you, you know, and made it available.

And it can be hard to have that same sense of, like, trust when we're working with new pedagogies because there can be this sense of, like, this is an experiment that might not work, you know. Yeah. Originality and lineage. And it's also something about knowing that you're showing up for something more than just yourself. You know, like when I think about showing up for a lineage, that that makes me sit up straight. You know what I mean? Because it's like, oh, right.

It's not just like here's this cute thing that I want to do in my life because I'm interested in it. It's like showing up for a lineage, in some abstract way, it feels like the lineage can see you back. You know what I mean? And it's like, when I show up to practice something that's coming from, I don't know, a lineage that involves John Coltrane or something, it's like I want to show up in a way that would be respectful

of this person in this lineage, you know? And I think that's something that is hard to recreate maybe. Well, no, I guess it just has to do with maybe respecting and acknowledging where information is meeting you from, you know? Which can be tricky to do when we can access so much information and rarely is there kind of a blueprint of like, here's where this information is growing from. But it's also a time when we have more capacity to track lineage and acknowledge authorship and non-authorship of folk musics or music that came to us not through a copyright, you know,

and just kind of develop a healthy practice of acknowledging where we're getting things from. I'm going to stop there. I want to thank everyone for coming out today. Yeah. I want to thank Esperanza Spalding for spending, being so generous with your time. Thank you.

Thanks for thinking of me. We'll talk again. Okay. Thanks for listening to The Paul Wells Show. The Paul Wells Show is produced by Antica in partnership with the National Arts Centre and the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. It's published by the Toronto Star and iPolitics. Thanks to our founding sponsor, TELUS,

and our title sponsor, Compass Rose. Our senior producer is Kevin Sexton. Our associate producer is Hayley Choi. Our executive producer is Lisa Gabriel. Stuart Cox is the president of Antica. Esperanza Spalding's won five Grammys. She keeps making amazing albums. Check them out. If you're enjoying this show, tell a friend.

We'll be back next Wednesday.