Esperanza Spalding Quotes
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I focused primarily on being an instrumentalist and studying music and on my primary means of expression: composing and playing.
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Your sanity is harder to get back than money or contacts. You are the magic. You are the art. You can't lose that.
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I did grow up in a rough neighborhood in Portland, which is an abstract concept for anybody who's rolled through Portland because now it looks like a TV set, literally.
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I was exposed to many kinds of music including rock and disco, classical and folk, Midtown and Miles Davis, Sly Stone and David Bowie.
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It's a pity that if someone who has a really profoundly potent art to share chooses not to or doesn't fit into this very thin slice of what's desirable and marketable, chances are the public will never get a chance to hear what they're doing.
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There is an assumption that if you're young and pretty, you will get all these opportunities that are way beyond your musical foundation.
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The Czech ease has become my saving grace for traveling! Plus,with its light weight and small size, I save thousands of dollars every year in airline fees.
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It's a pity if someone who has a really profoundly potent art to share chooses not to or doesn't fit into this very thin slice of what's desirable and marketable, chances are the public will never get a chance to hear what they're doing.
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Jazz has always been a melting pot of influences and I plan to incorporate them all.
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It's about process, the process of growth. It seems to me in my own life - and other minds throughout history have also observed this phenomenon - that growth seems to move in two directions at the same time.
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I fear that I won't get better and that I won't have time to practice. To be called a "jazz musician" - it's a big responsibility.
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Jazz music just resonates with the frequency of me.
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My name means 'hope' in Spanish and it's a name I want to live up to.
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I always say that the problem with jazz accessibility is not the content of the music, it's people's ability to access it.
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Up-and-coming musicians can easily reach out and find a loving teacher, and that's definitely what happened to me.
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The benefit of the radio is, something beyond your realm of knowledge can surprise you, can enter your realm of knowledge.
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Anything I do has to have integrity, so if you just want to make music, it's not difficult finding support. The hard part for a publicist or manager is making a star.
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When I read, you know, a rough neighborhood of Portland, I'm like - what? - they didn't have kombucha bars there?
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On nights that I'm feeling a need to stretch personally and artistically, I tend to put together outfits that are very quirky, mismatched and over-the-top eclectic.
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I am insubordinate by nature. I can't help it.
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I think there's so much negative influence on children in school settings. It becomes learning by rote to pass a test. It's not contextualized.
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If you don't already know about jazz music, how would you be exposed? How would get an opportunity to find out if it spoke to you? If you get exposed to it enough, you might find a taste for it.
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People are more used to seeing men who are masters at an instrument than women.
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It's weird sometimes to have people not see me or see what I do.