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VERSED is a monthly podcast illuminating the heart and soul of music. Featuring in-depth interviews with songwriters and composers, plus tips and insights to help you navigate your music career. Brought to you by ASCAP, home of the world's greatest music creators.

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This episode is about all that jazz. esperanza spalding is a five-time Grammy Award-winning bassist, singer, songwriter, and composer. Recently, she has expanded her gifts to include work with fellow creators, teachers and practitioners in various fields to explore the therapeutic potential of music. Her last two albums, 2018’s 12 Little Spells and 2021’s Songwrights Apothecary Lab, reflect this new direction in her evolution as an artist. 

She wrote an opera with Wayne Shorter, which premiered in fall 2021, and is presently working with Harvard University to co-create and learn with students there. We talked to her as she prepared to grace the legendary Newport Jazz Festival Fort Stage. Also, we talk to Michael R. Dudley, a trumpet player, educator and recipient of the ASCAP Foundation Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award. Michael was selected to perform at this year’s Newport Jazz Festival as part of the Newport Festival Foundation’s enduring partnership with the ASCAP Foundation to promote emerging jazz talent.

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EP. 31 FEATURED INTERVIEWEE: esperanza spalding

esperanza spalding (also known as irma nejando, or, i.e.) is a being who has grown to recognize love in the abstract and aspirational, and is now fully dedicated to learning how she can serve and embody actualized love through honor for and receptivity to, fellow humans, teachers, and practitioners of various regenerative arts.

 

bass, piano, composition, performance, voice and lyrics are tools and disciplines she is engaged in deeply to cultivate her own channel for transmitting care and beauty through vibration/sound/presence.

 

she has written an opera with Wayne Shorter that premiered in fall 2021 // she is currently developing a mockumentary in collaboration with brontë velez and San Francisco Symphony // researching and developing liberation rituals in jazz and black dance //  and continuing a lifelong collaboration with practitioners in various fields relating to music, healing and cognition to develop music with enhanced therapeutic potential. 

 

she is presently paid by Harvard University to co-create and learn with students enrolled there, working on developing creative practices that serve the restoration of people and land. Visit Esperanza's website

 

+Learn about Esperanza and Wayne Shorter's opera ... (Iphigenia)

EP. 31 SPECIAL GUEST: MICHAEL R. DUDLEY

Michael R. Dudley Jr. is a trumpet player, composer, producer, educator, and photographer based in Upstate New York.

With more than a decade of professional experience as a musician, he has played at venues like NYC's Birdland Jazz Club and Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola with groups such as the Maria Schneider Orchestra, Cincinnati Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, and the South Florida Jazz Orchestra. His performances as a fellow with the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra allowed him to share the stage with John Williams and Quincy Jones, among other amazing artists.

Michael can be heard as a lead trumpet player on multiple GRAMMY®-winning recordings by the John Daversa Big Band and Brian Lynch Big Band in addition to his self-produced single ("Another Star") featuring vocalist Makayla Forgione and saxophonist Melvin Butler, having recorded with numerous groups while completing his graduate studies at the University of Miami's Frost School of Music. 

As a composer and arranger, he has studied with Maria Schneider, Miho Hazama, Gary Lindsay, Noam Wiesenberg, and Stephen Guerra, recently earning a 2022 ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award for his piece "Overture to The Before And After Times." His works have most recently been performed by the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra, New Canon Chamber Collective, and Cincinnati Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, with premieres scheduled in the near future. 

 

Michael also values his work as an educator, serving as the Visiting Assistant Professor of Jazz Studies at SUNY Potsdam's Crane School of Music. Michael was also recently brought on staff as an instructor and recording engineer at the JAS Academy in Aspen, Colorado alongside Shelly Berg, Christian McBride, and Chuck Bergeron after first participating as a student in 2019. Check out Michael R. Dudley’s website