Howard Reich from The Chicago Tribune has just published his top live jazz shows of 2011.

10 great shows that include Tammy McCann, McCoy Tyner, Tony Bennett and Esperanza Spalding among others.

For Reich, Spalding was able to present complex, sophisticated musical ideas in ways that were accessible and appealing to the mass audience she attracts. Traveling easily among jazz, classical and pop-tinged idioms, the bassist forged an ensemble sound at once melodically appealing and harmonically complex. If she can maintain her high musical standards amid all the attention that has been trained on her since she won the best new artist Grammy® Award in February (no easy task), she could bring new audiences to jazz.

Learn more

Esperanza‘s Chamber Music Society was the #1 biggest selling Contemporary Jazz Album of 2011 and Esperanza was #1 in the Contemporary Jazz Artist category as well.

Lear more

Grammy-winning bassist Esperanza Spalding, Berklee voice coach Maggie Scott, and R&B singer Lalah Hathaway conducted a clinic for students this week. Spalding and Hathaway are former students of Scott’s, to whom they paid tribute with a concert Thursday that also included alums Antonia Bennett, Robin McKelle, and Nadia Washington. It was Spalding’s first appearance in Boston since winning best new artist Grammy last February. Pictured (from left): Hathaway, Scott, and Spalding.

Learn more.

From The Boston Globe
By: Mark Shanahan and Merdith Goldstein

Search & Restore is a Brooklyn based non profit dedicated to the new jazz and improvised music scene. They’re trying to raise $200,000 for their 2012 operations by way of 8,000 $25 donations. Esperanza Spalding improvised for 25 seconds to encourage folks to give $25, see the video.

For more information visit searchandrestore.com

Esperanza Spalding closes the year winning the Jazz Artist of the Year award at the annual Boston Music Awards ceremony held at the Liberty Hotel on Sunday, November 20, 2011.

Check the The Boston Herald to see the full list of winners in all categories.

Congratulations to all the nominees and winners!

Source All About Jazz

Since 1980, Berklee Professor Maggie Scott has hosted Jazz Vocal Night, an annual student recital where she is involved in all aspects, from auditioning the performers to accompanying them on piano. Celebrating Maggie Scott: 30 Years of Jazz Vocal Night, is part of the 2011-2012 Signature Series at Berklee and will take place at the Berklee Performance Center, 136 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, MA.

Scott and special guests Bennett, Hathaway, McKelle, Spalding, and Washington will perform jazz standards, and video footage of the alumnae from past Jazz Vocal nights will be shown during each artist’s introduction. The concert band features faculty members Tim Ray on piano, Terri Lyne Carrington on drums, and Jon Lockwood on bass. Concert co-producer Greg Hopkins plans to have additional instrumentalists – including students – join on some tunes with guitar and trombone features, horn section, and a string quartet.

Learn more on Jazz News and venue information.

The results of the 76th Annual DownBeat Readers Poll are out.

Iconic pianist Ahmad Jamal was named as the readers’ choice for the DownBeat Hall of Fame, bassist Esperanza Spalding became the first woman to be named DownBeat’s Jazz Artist of the Year, and Brad Mehldau’s Live in Marciac (Nonesuch) was named Jazz Album of the Year.

Esperanza was previously awarded  in 2010 as Rising Star Acoustic Bass.

Learn more here

The Philadelphia Chapter, in partnership with the GRAMMY Foundation and GRAMMY U, hosted a GRAMMY Camp – SoundCheck with Esperanza Spalding on October 14th at the Merriam Theater in Philadelphia, PA. At the end of her Chamber Music Society Tour, Spalding gave high school and college students a glimpse into a professional soundcheck before sitting down to discuss creating and studying music with high school and college students.

Learn more here.

In 2009 the Venezuelan pianist José Antonio Abreu received the TED Prize for his work as director of the non-profit program El Sistema. Originally called Social Action for Music, El Sistema is a state foundation which watches over and coordinates Venezuela’s 125 youth orchestras and instrumental training programmes. Esperanza would like to share with you Abreu‘s touching speech when he received the TED Prize.

Click here to watch it.

This week Esperanza Spalding has joined the saxophonist Joe Lovano on his U.S. Five project for a ten-day tour that will cross America and end in Canada. As soon as this tour ends, Esperanza will be back in the studio to finish the mixes on her next album, Radio Music Society, due to be release next spring.

Learn more here.