Oregon’s Esperanza Spalding, 41, incorporates instrumental jazz, improvisation, vocalese, poetry, dance and storytelling into her mix. She sings samba, opera, pop, jazz, R’n’B and blues. She’s a bassist, composer, educator, healer, movie-maker and activist. She’d just as soon lecture on regenerative agriculture as she would sing the blues but there will be no lectures in Red Bank on August 8 within the confines of the Count Basie Performing Arts Center’s Hackensack Meridian Health Theatre.
