Esperanza's singalongs and Udden's "Torchsongs" CD

Esperanza Spalding

In this week's Boston Phoenix, Jon Garelick profiles a couple of young jazz musicians that graced Celebrity Series stages in 2005-06. The first is bassist Esperanza Spalding, who anchored saxophonist Joe Lovano's quartet at our Sanders Theatre concert in March. The date was a double-bill that also featured vocalist Luciana Souza, who is a particular favorite of Spalding's, as Spalding plays bass and sings. Spalding is back for some Boston dates as a headline act.

From Jon Garelick's feature, The Natural:

"It’s getting late on a Tuesday night at Bob’s Southern Bistro in the South End and I’m searching my memory for the last time I’ve heard and seen what’s happening now: a jazz singalong. Onstage is Esperanza Spalding, 21, the petite bass player with the towering Afro who came to Berklee as a 17-year-old and has since not only become, quite literally, the poster girl for the college, with a giant silhouette of her painted on the side of the Performance Center, but also a fixture around town, now teaching bass at the school where she was so recently a student, and showing up as a leader and sideperson in any number of local bands." Read the full text of The Natural.


Jeremy Udden

Also profiled in Garelick's article is saxophonist and Wrentham native Jeremy Udden (pronounced you-deen), who fills the alto saxophone chair with the Either/Orchestra, which celebrated its 20th anniversary with a Celebrity Series concert back in January. Udden is releasing a new CD, Torchsongs, this month, he talked with Garelick for part two of the article:

"The two jazz albums that Udden cites as models are Joe Henderson’s 'Lush Life' and Joe Lovano’s 'Rush Hour' — the equivalent of jazz concept albums. 'But I wasn’t listening to those when I did this. I was listening to rock records like Wilco’s 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' and Beck’s 'Sea Change.' I suppose ‘Fish Lake’ is the most Beck-like. I’m still holding a saxophone, but it’s got more layers — guitars and Rhodes and saxophones fading in and out. There’s no saxophone solo on it because I didn’t want one.'"

Read the full text of The Natural.

Udden also gets a nice profile from Bill Beuttler in Friday's Boston Globe. Read In apartment, Udden had room to grow.