Esperanza Spalding Quotations

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.

You can grow up with literally nothing and you don’t suffer if you know you’re loved and valued,

I just think music is so intrinsically linked with images in the culture that we live in that youll be hard-pressed to have an experience with the music without a preconceived notion.

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.

Genre boundaries are good for marketing but they all but disappear when you're a player.

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.

For what I can imagine and feel and think and hear, I can hardly do anything on the acoustic bass. It used to be just pure frustration of imagining so much more and being able to get to a certain level of execution.

My earliest attempts at writing were when I was seven. I would sit at the piano and transcribe the songs I heard on the radio. I'd change little things in the music and write different lyrics.

I don't watch TV, I don't spend time on the Internet, and I don't party much. I don't text very much, either.

I love people, and I love to be with people and to make music with people, but my natural state is to revert back to being by myself in my house, which is cool because thats where I practice and write and listen and study.

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.

I always say that the problem with jazz accessibility is not the content of the music, it's people's ability to access it.

The benefit of the radio is, something beyond your realm of knowledge can surprise you, can enter your realm of knowledge.

There is an assumption that if you're young and pretty, you will get all these opportunities that are way beyond your musical foundation.

There's enough time in the day: If you go to bed at 10 and start your day at 6, there's a lot you can do in a day!

Jazz has always been a melting pot of influences and I plan to incorporate them all.

I grew up with an incredibly loving and supportive family that gave me the impression there were a lot of options for me out there.

I like to read, and I like dance. I don't dance, but I like to see other people dance.

I never think my music isn't easy until I got to teach it to other people.

I write at the piano, so I write things that fit comfortably under my hands, and I'm not thinking in terms of any specific compositional methods. I'm just seeking sounds.

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.

Jazz music just resonates with the frequency of me.

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.

I am insubordinate by nature. I can't help it.

There's the juiciest music that makes me so happy, music that I need on that deserted island when I'm stranded for the rest of my life, and nobody cares that it's there.

It's weird sometimes to have people not see me or see what I do.

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.

My name means 'hope' in Spanish and it's a name I want to live up to.

When people say, "Oh, she plays like a dude," it's usually dudes who are the ones saying it. They're saying, "Oh, she's as good as us." Of course, that's a stupid statement.

The music that I make is pretty sincere; it's from my heart and I love it, and what just happened is more people have started to connect with my heart, and I haven't followed some kind of marketing scheme,

Whoever you are, if you know what you're doing, you don't want other people to overtake the merit of your art.

What I'm identifying with is the vision or the idea - whatever was the little nugget that started it.

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.

When I read, you know, a rough neighborhood of Portland, I'm like - what? - they didn't have kombucha bars there?

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.

People are more used to seeing men who are masters at an instrument than women.

People are more used to seeing men who are masters at an instrument than women. When people say, 'Oh, she plays like a dude,' it's usually dudes who are the ones saying it. They're saying, 'Oh, she's as good as us.' Of course, that's a stupid statement. It's totally stereotypical to say, 'We have an advantage on this, and if anyone else can do it well, it's only because they're like us.' I think more men are starting to learn that this attitude is totally hollow and based in imagination. As more women are involved in music, this kind of thing gets said less and less.

You don't have to be fearless to do anything, you can be scared out of your mind.

I’m not gonna sit around and waste my precious divine energy trying to explain and be ashamed of things you think are wrong with me.