First Listen Live: Esperanza Spalding, 'Emily's D+Evolution'

Fulfilling the performance-art vision of her spirit-muse Emily, Esperanza Spalding will play her forthcoming album Emily's D+Evolution in concert at BRIC House in Brooklyn, N.Y., this Thursday, March 3 at 8 p.m. ET. WFUV and NPR Music will present a live video webstream of the performance as part of the First Listen Live series.

Emily's D+Evolution marks a new sound for Spalding. Here, she picks up the electric bass and surrounds herself with a power trio of electric guitar and drums — a louder, proggier, weirder funk-rock direction for the jazz-trained bassist and vocalist. It's part of a broad theatrical vision for the character Emily, inspired by broad philosophical musings on resourcefulness and the nature of progress.

"Whether you want to see it as devolution and evolution, and the place where they co-exist without one diminishing the other, or you could look at it like barely having the tools that you need, but having to move forward, and having to keep moving," Spalding told NPR. "What do you do when you don't really have all the tools that you need, but you have to survive? And you need to grow and expand?"

A limited number of free tickets are available to the public. Follow @nprmusic on Twitter and Instagram, and NPR Music on Facebook, for information about claiming a pair.

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