Esperanza Spalding Quotes

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

Jazz music just resonates with the frequency of me.

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.

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!

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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,

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.