Advertisement

Grammy Awards: Esperanza Spalding wins best new artist

Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Rising jazz star Esperanza Spalding was named best new artist at the 53rd Grammy Awards, besting a group of more mainstream and well-known artists. Spalding, who in 2010 released her third album, “Chamber Music Society,” has rapidly become something of a crossover star in the jazz community, having performed at the White House as well as at major pop festivals such as Austin City Limits.

The bassist-vocalist is an adventurous genre-hopper, mixing elements of classical, bossa nova, funk and hip-hop into a contemporary jazz sound that has an experimental flair and reaches beyond the standard genre audience.

Advertisement

Rare is it for a jazz artist to take the top prize in one of the major categories. In 2008, Herbie Hancock’s “River: The Joni Letters” was named album of the year, the first jazz title to lead the field in approximately 50 years, and Norah Jones, who leans decidedly more toward pop, was named best new artist in 2003, one of the few talents with a jazz background to lead the field.

Spalding competed with British folk-rockers Mumford & Sons, heart-on-sleeves rapper Drake, orchestral-pop act Florence + the Machine and teen sensation Justin Bieber.

The awards -- which are considered the highest honor in the music world -- are being held at Staples Center and telecast on CBS. We’ll carry all the breaking news and headlines here on Awards Tracker.

RELATED:

Live blogging: The Grammy Awards

Red carpet photos

Advertisement

Complete Grammy coverage

-- Todd Martens

Advertisement