PERFORMANCE/TOUR: Esperanza Spalding at the Broad Stage Santa Monica

Esperanza Spalding knows jazz is a craggy mountain. Already much awarded, televised, elder-approved and Obama-endorsed at 25, the Oregonian bassist-singer could imagine her flag planted. But her septet's Thursday performance at Santa Monica's Broad Stage showed her to be a lighthearted striver. A challenge: While cast as a youthful esperanza for a graybeard art, Spalding was playing chamber jazz in an upscale concert hall where few peers could budget a ducat. At concert's start, she dealt by ...

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