An orchestra walks into a jazz club

Jessie Montgomery (b. 1981) 
⁠Hymn for Everyone (2021)  

Think of a modern musician’s career, not as a straight line, but as an ever-expanding sphere. Possibilities, potentialities, and commitments arise and are in turn embraced and explored as need be. Think of flexibility, of imagination, of curiosity, of boldness.  

Then think of Jessie Montgomery, violinist, teacher, and composer with an expansive vision across multiple disciplines and a deep commitment to social justice. About Hymn for Everyone, she writes that it “is based on a hymn that I wrote during the spring of 2021 that was a reflection on personal and collective challenges happening at the time. Up until that point, I had resisted composing ‘response pieces’ to the pandemic and social-political upheaval, and had been experiencing an intense writer’s block.  

“But one day, after a long hike, this hymn just came to me – a rare occurrence. The melody traverses through different orchestral ‘choirs’ and is accompanied by the rest of the ensemble. It is a kind of meditation for orchestra, exploring various washes of color and timbre through each repetition of the melody.” 

esperanza spalding (b. 1984) 
Selected Songs with Orchestra  

esperanza spalding’s love of music began when she was just a tiny tot. After she heard Yo-Yo Ma play on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood she decided, “I want to do that. What that is, I’m gonna do it.” That “hyperactive, self-motivated critter” eventually wound up being selected by President Barack Obama to perform at the Novel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway in December 2009. She was 25 years old, and by then she had already been concertmaster of the Chamber Music Society of Oregon and on the faculty of the Berklee College of Music. She has been a member of the Harvard faculty. She has five Grammy awards, a Boston Music Award, and a Soul Train Music Award, not to mention 10 studio albums, along with live albums and singles.  

The most fascinating thing about all of these albums is that they defy simple categorization. The same is true of spalding, who remains a self-motivated ball of energy who embraces musical genres with an exhilarating abandon. To be sure, she’s best known for songwriting, playing the bass, and singing. But she contains multitudes, the inevitable result of her growing up playing a handful of instruments and taking on a plethora of musical experiences. Jazz legend Wayne Shorter said of her work: “It’s happening. It’s out there, but it’s interesting what she’s doing. She’s taking all kinds of chances and not giving up. If you see a fork in the road, which path should you take? Take both of them. She’s done that.” 

Consider Songwrights Apothecary Lab, an album forged by a team of neuroscientists, psychologists, spiritual teachers, music therapists, and student researchers. Over a 12-day residency in Manhattan they authored and recorded six songs. Just to keep things fluid, spalding arranged to have plastic bags of fungi-containing soil hung around their workspace, so over the course of the Songwrights Apothecary Lab, the soil sprouted mushrooms. Odd? Sure. But wonderful. We’ve had enough jowly old men growling their way over manuscript paper in a dusty room. This is creativity itself as a healing act, music forged in community, music arising out of joy, not duty or fear. “This is how I like to be in community,” she says. “This is how I like to learn—with others. I like to invite other people into the looking.” 

On this concert spalding presents a bouquet of her songs, now in community with no less than the musicians of the Oregon Symphony. Ergo, it’s a big community. But that’s just dandy. It’s what esperanza spalding is all about. 

From her 2010 album Chamber Music Society come “Chacarera” and “Apple Blossom,” both her own compositions with a distinct Latin vibe, reflecting the inspiration she has found in the work of Brazilian artist Milton Nascimento. But Emily’s D+Evolution of 2016 is a quite a different affair, in that it explores a fusion of prog rock, jazz fusion, and a poetically-infused pop style, exemplified in the narrative song “Judas.” 

The 2018 concept album 12 Little Spells takes us on a musical journey through the human organism; each spell is aimed at one particular part of the body. “To Tide us Over” is about the mouth, the portal of speech, but also the seat of taste. “What if music could physically and spiritually support the listener?” spalding asks.  

Wayne Shorter (1913–2023) 
Causeways, arr. Clark Rundell (1988) 

“We didn’t know for a long time about the massive interconnectivity of aspen groves and how their underground root systems actually make them the largest organisms on earth. Wayne’s imagination feels like that to me,” says esperanza spalding. “I can look at all the component parts of his music and understand how it works, but there’s a part below or beyond that you can’t perceive or analyze. You feel that there’s something we can’t see that’s making all of that expression happen.” 

So the music, so the man. Wayne Shorter’s musical tapestry was a long time in the weave. As a boy, he was fascinated by the Universal Pictures monster movies and particularly their scores. “The music behind Bela Lugosi when he played Igor in Son of Frankenstein. Or The Wolfman, that music behind Lon Chaney when he changed into the werewolf … that stuff got me curious about sound.” 

Eventually Shorter found the tenor saxophone and the jazz world. In 1959 he joined Art Blakey’s hard bop group Jazz Messengers as both performer and composer. Miles Davis came calling in 1964, with Shorter acting once again as saxophonist and composer. “Wayne seems so aware of how the harmony affects form,” explained the quintet’s bassist Ron Carter. “I think Wayne’s sense of chord progressions is different than everybody else’s, but he writes them in a form where these chords, as unusual as they may seem, sound perfectly normal for that form.” 

In 1971 Shorter formed the fusion group Weather Report and his interest in symphonic textures grew. Starting in the late 1990s he began receiving commissions for symphonic scores. In 2008 came a crucial connection, with conductor Clark Rundell. It was Rundell who eased the path for symphony orchestra musicians, who are not as a rule comfortable with the improvisation that is common amongst jazz musicians. 

Causeways began on the 1988 album “Joy Rider.” Rundell asked Shorter if he could orchestrate it. “Do it,” Shorter told him. “Just make it even more mysterious.” Causeways is built around a hypnotic, unchanging rhythm, rather like Ravel’s Boléro. Rundell retained Shorter’s form, melodies, and rhythm, but orchestrated it in a traditional symphonic style. It makes for a terrific concert opener. “Everybody needs a shorter piece lasting nine or ten minutes to play in front of The Rite of Spring or The Firebird Suite,” says Rundell. In this concert, Causeways provides the introduction to Gaia, Shorter’s largest and most ambitious symphonic composition. 

Gaia (2013) 

Shorter’s first collaboration with esperanza spalding, Gaia, was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which gave the premiere in 2013. He composed the lengthy work specifically for spalding and asked her to write the lyrics. She tells us: 

“When I was going over to Wayne and [his wife] Carolina’s house often, I would be looking over his shoulder at the score. Wayne wrote all of his music by hand with a pen on score paper. He would use White Out and a ruler if he made a mistake. So I’m staring over his shoulder at this massive score of Gaia – he called it a tree trunk – and I said, ‘Wayne, what is this section about?’ And he said, ‘This section is about people breaking through the cultural cobwebs and getting to their real transformative power. So I’m putting something really difficult in the third violin. Because usually, the third violin gets the really boring stuff. This will help them break through!’ So that was the level of thought and intention Wayne was putting into every note, and I’m sure you can hear it.” 

People breaking through the cultural cobwebs and getting to their real transformative power. That’s key. Nichiren Buddhism has played a critical role in the lives of both Shorter and spalding, in particular via the practices of the modern Soka Gakkai movement. Consider this statement from early Soka Gakkai founder Josei Toda that defines practice as “an act of reform aimed at opening up the inner universe, the creative life force within each individual, and leading to human freedom.” 

Gaia is indeed a musical composition in that it’s an extended work in multiple sections. But it might be helpful to think of it also as a practice, a measured period of focus that is simultaneously a pathway to personal transformation. 

Once at an airport Shorter was asked the usual question by the passport control folks: “Do you have anything to declare?” He thought about it for a minute, then he answered: “My personal freedom.”