Esperanza Spalding Wins DownBeat Critics Poll

Esperanza SpaldingBassist, vocalist and composer Esperanza Spalding has won the DownBeat Critics Poll, in the “Acoustic Bass, Rising Star” category.

Here are the bassists also in the running, with scores:

  1. Esperanza Spalding (100)
  2. Larry Grenadier (52)
  3. Ben Allison (45)
  4. Avishai Cohen (31)
  5. Scott Colley (28)
  6. John HĂ©bert (27)
  7. Nicki Parrott (19)
  8. Linda Oh (18)
  9. Reuben Rogers (18)
  10. Drew Gress (17)
  11. Ben William (16)

Spalding’s next album, Chamber Music Society will be released next month.

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  1. Bart

    This is another example of how lame polls are. Nothing to do with Esperanza Spalding, she’s a great player and deserves every credit she gets. But to have Larry Grenadier, Avishai Cohen, Scott Colley, Reuben Rogers and Drew Gress, who have all had long careers already, in this poll, is insulting to them. The biggest problem with any poll is that they have nothing to do with the accomplishments of the musicians, but everything with how big their fan base is.