Heads Up

Bassist/singer Esperanza Spalding, one of this decade’s most celebrated young jazzers, took listeners by surprise with 2008’s Esperanza, which showcased stunning instrumental skills as well as audacious vocal talents and a knack for catchy songwriting. For her second major release (and third overall), she confounds expectations, tapping her classical training for music that’s as rangy and multidimensional as it is ambitious – as bracing as it is challenging. Joined by drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, pianist Leo Genovese and a string trio, Spalding leans into elongated phrases against swirling strings on opening ballad “Little Fly,” and connects with Brazil’s Milton Nascimento for the roving, poignant “Apple Blossom.” Echoes of Chick Corea-influenced fusion and third-stream jazz resonate throughout, but much of Chamber Music Society is utterly unclassifiable, and delicious.