Esperanza Spalding Is a Surprise Winner during a Grammys

That was a doubt being asked by many song fans after she won best new artist during a 53rd annual Grammy Awards on Sunday night. A identical doubt was positively on a minds of a dual nominees widely regarded as favorites: Justin Bieber, a teen-pop juggernaut, and Drake, a skilfully unhappy hip-hop star.

In any case, Ms. Spalding, a petite, precociously means 26-year-old bassist and thespian creatively from Portland, Ore., was among a evening’s critical surprises, and a initial jazz musician to accept a endowment in decades, if not ever.

“Thank we to a Academy for even nominating me in this category,” she pronounced usually after reaching a podium, as if hurrying to acknowledge a unlikeliness of her win. Within moments her name had turn a trending subject on Twitter, especially for reasons of oddity — or spite. (Don’t disaster with Mr. Bieber’s fans.) More than 18 hours after — an eternity, as these things go — a trend was still holding strong.

Her win was reminiscent, in some respects, of Herbie Hancock’s astonishing triumph during a 2008 Grammys, when “River: The Joni Letters” (Verve) won manuscript of a year. Then as now there was dismayed dishonesty outward a precincts of jazz, and silly exultation within. And, afterwards as now, there was reflexive speak of genuine song prevailing, righteously. But Mr. Hancock is Mr. Hancock: not usually a shining pianist yet a grand elder and crossover pioneer, usually a arrange of man to acquire a faithfulness of electorate in a Recording Academy. (On Sunday his self-released 2010 album, “The Imagine Project,” warranted him dual awards, for best makeshift jazz solo and best cocktail partnership with vocals.)

Ms. Spalding is something else: a charismatic whirlwind proudly hailed, for a while now, as some kind of critical distillate for jazz. Certainly she arrived with good pot of talent and composure, becoming, during 20, one of a youngest musicians hired to learn during a Berklee College of Music, where she had usually warranted her degree. She expelled an portentous instrumental debut, “Junjo” on a Ayva tag in 2006, and an unfocused yet appealing outspoken follow-up, “Esperanza,” on Heads Up International in 2008. The manuscript she expelled final year, also on Heads Up, is “Chamber Music Society,” that presents her lissome, light-gauge voice in a sparer light, framed by sensitively stimulating arrangements. It’s a good album, yet it substantially didn’t merit a Grammy nomination, and didn’t get one. Which raises another question: Not who, yet because Ms. Spalding, and because now?

The discipline for best new artist, that have prolonged been a indicate of contention, revolve around some notice of informative relevance. And Ms. Spalding’s aptitude has never unequivocally been secure in her outlay as a recording artist. As an lawful honest bassist who also nimbly sings, she has no accurate counterpart or precedent: a details of her talent are unique. And in a interlude between “Esperanza” and “Chamber Music Society,” she has wowed David Letterman, seemed in a Banana Republic ad debate and achieved by ask during a White House and a Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. She was tapped by Prince for a reverence during a BET Awards, and afterwards as his opener during Madison Square Garden.

Her success is usually tangential to jazz, really, even yet jazz percolates by her music, along with Stevie Wonder-ish essence and Brazilian cocktail and many else besides. Some of her many eager admirers come from a some-more jazz-literate, independent wing of hip-hop: on Monday the Roots’ drummer-bandleader, Questlove, took to Twitter to protest that a best-kept tip had been revealed. Her subsequent manuscript is being constructed by Q-Tip.

With hindsight, a calculus behind her win seems deceptively clear, yet a Recording Academy doesn’t hold opinion tallies. Drake and Mr. Bieber — both Canadians, both accessing a stream of RB — competence have separate one shred of a voting body. The other dual nominees, Florence a Machine and Mumford Sons — both English, both somewhat reversion in their interest — competence have separate another. More important, though, was a marvel of Ms. Spalding’s gaseous prowess as a musician and a singer. Virtuosity has always played good with Grammy voters, and so has a comforting prophesy of a splendid immature artist support determined ideals of quality.

In that clarity Ms. Spalding competence not be a Grammy inheritor to Mr. Hancock so many as a inheritor of sorts to Norah Jones, who took home 5 awards in 2003, including best new artist and manuscript of a year. Ms. Jones has given turn partial of a Grammy gentry, as she demonstrated on Sunday night, singing a charming “Jolene” in reverence to Dolly Parton, with guitar and outspoken accompaniment from Keith Urban and John Mayer.

Similarly, during a preshow Webcast on Sunday — a partial of a Grammys in that many of a awards are bestowed, with a warm potency of a church raffle — Ms. Spalding served as host, alongside her associate vocalist Bobby McFerrin. They non-stop a rite with a chronicle of Eddie Harris’s “Freedom Jazz Dance,” a crossover jazz tune, and went on to accept dozens of awards on interest of their absentee recipients. “The lectern accepts,” she pronounced again and again, smiling demurely, and maybe contrast out a feeling of winning.