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.
You don't have to be fearless to do anything; you can be scared out of your mind. 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.
There's nothing wrong with struggle. Anytime I look back at a difficult phase of my life and see what grew out of it - the creative survival tactics - I think that the good is way better than the bad.
Your sanity is harder to get back than money or contacts. You are the magic. You are the art. You can't lose that.
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 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.
I was exposed to many kinds of music including rock and disco, classical and folk, Midtown and Miles Davis, Sly Stone and David Bowie.
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.
When something in art or music piques my interest, I tend to go check it out, and most things I check out, I'm not very good at. But a few things I've gone to check out have given me back as much love as I gave them, usually much more.
Genre boundaries are good for marketing but they all but disappear when you're a player.
When I was a kid, people called me Emily rather than Esperanza, even though my full name is Esperanza Emily Spalding.
I always say that the problem with jazz accessibility is not the content of the music, it's people's ability to access it.
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 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.
You can grow up with literally nothing and you don't suffer if you know you're loved and valued.
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 has always been a melting pot of influences and I plan to incorporate them all.
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 is an assumption that if you're young and pretty, you will get all these opportunities that are way beyond your musical foundation.
