Esperanza Spalding, winner of the best new artist award at this year’s Grammies, personifies the ethnic trends reshaping America. She is a fresh-faced 27-year old jazz bassist whose very name portrays her mixed ethnic and racial heritage as the daughter of an African-American father and a Hispanic, Welsh, Native American mother. Spalding first gained her deep interest in music watching French-born Chinese American classical cellist Yo Yo Ma on “Sesame Street,” a TV program that has perhaps contributed to ethnic acculturation in the U.S. as much as any other institution. Spalding’s formal musical training was originally classical, but at age 15 she decided that her passion was jazz, itself a quintessentially American 20th Century fusion of black rhythms and the melodies of European immigrants. To read the full, original article click on this link: The Millennial Mosaic | Newgeography.com
Author: Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais