Since there is no information about this area of her life, we assume that she is single and is not the wife or mother of a man or children. She is also a multi-lingual vocalist. Blessed with a unique performance style and voice, Spalding sings in three languages — Portuguese, Spanish, and English. Her first musical instrument was a violin. Spalding began playing the violin at the age of five. Her love for this instrument earned her many performances, which led her to fall in love with the jazz bass, which is now her main instrument.
Before she turned completely to the bass, she had tried instruments like oboe, cello, and clarinet. But finally, she decided to go for the bass. Related Articles. July 8, July 6, July 10, July 7, Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Close Log In. Hailed as a prodigy in her teens, she garnered wider attention in the s with the release of her debut, Junjo , and its follow-up, Esperanza , the latter of which topped the contemporary jazz charts.
In , she won Best New Artist at the Grammys, an accolade that helped propel her third album, Chamber Music Society , into the Billboard Top 40 as the best-selling contemporary jazz album that year. At the same time, Spalding won respect as a teacher, becoming the youngest faculty member at the Berklee College of Music. She took home a second Grammy for 's Radio Music Society. Born in Portland, Oregon, in , Spalding suffered from chronic pneumonia and rheumatoid juvenile arthritis, side effects of an autoimmune deficiency disorder.
Subsequently, she spent much of her childhood being home-schooled. It was during these years, starting at age five, that she began playing violin after seeing Yo-Yo Ma perform on an episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. She excelled at the instrument and joined the Chamber Music Society of Oregon.
By the time she was 15, Spalding had been named the ensemble's concertmaster violinist. It was also at age 15 that she returned to public school. Spalding was raised in Portland, Oregon, and was a musical prodigy, playing violin in the Chamber Music Society of Oregon at five years old. She was later both self-taught and -trained on a number of instruments, including guitar and bass.
She was raised in the King, Alberta neighborhood in Northeast Portland, which at that time was at its height of gang violence. Her mother raised her and her brother as a single parent. Spalding has an interest in the music of other cultures, including that of Brazil, commenting: "With Portuguese songs, the phrasing of the melody is intrinsically linked with the language, and it's beautiful. Spalding's mother took note of her musical proclivity when Spalding was able to reproduce Beethoven by ear on the family's piano.
Spalding has credited watching classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma perform on an episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood as an integral part of her childhood, and what inspired her to pursue music. By the time Spalding was five, she had taught herself to play the violin and was playing with the Chamber Music Society of Oregon. Spalding stayed with the group until she was fifteen years old, and left as concertmaster. Due to a lengthy childhood illness, Spalding spent much of her elementary school years being home-schooled, but also attended King Elementary School in northeast Portland.
During this time, she also found the opportunity to pick up instruction in music by listening to her mother's college teacher instructor, who instructed her mother in guitar.
According to Spalding, when she was about eight, her mother briefly studied jazz guitar in college. Spalding says: "Going with her to her class, I would sit under the piano. Then I would come home and I would be playing her stuff that her teacher had been playing.
She sings in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Spalding began performing live in clubs in Portland, Oregon, as a teenager, securing her first gig at fifteen years old in a blues club, when she could play only one line on bass. One of the seasoned musicians with whom she played that first night invited her to join the band's rehearsals "so she could actually learn something," and her rehearsals soon grew into regular performances spanning almost a year. According to Spalding, it was a chance for her to stretch as a musician, reaching and growing beyond her experience.
Her early contact with these "phenomenal resources," as she calls the musicians who played with her, fostered her sense of rhythm and helped nurture her interest in her instrument. She does not consider herself a musical prodigy, having said, "I am surrounded by prodigies everywhere I go, but because they are a little older than me, or not a female, or not on a major label, they are not acknowledged as such. Spalding had intended to play cello, but discovered the bass when she was fourteen at the performing arts high school, The Northwest Academy, to which she had won a scholarship.
The bass was a good fit for her. Spalding found school in general "easy — and boring" and dropped out. Although she had taken a few private voice lessons, which taught her how to project her voice, her primary singing experience had come from "singing in the shower," she said, before she started performing vocals for Noise for Pretend.
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