Esperanza Spalding brings her genre-defying act to Moscow for Hampton Jazz Festival

Portland singer, songwriter and bassist Esperanza Spalding has performed at the White House for the Obamas, paid tribute to Prince alongside Alicia Keys and Janelle Monae, and beat out Justin Bieber and Mumford & Sons for the best new artist trophy at the 2011 Grammy Awards.

She began her music career at age 5, as a violinist with the Chamber Music Society of Oregon, playing classical music. As a teen, she sang with an indie pop rock group.

Mostly, though, she is a jazz musician who isn’t afraid to color outside the lines. Her most recent album, 2016’s “Emily’s D+Evolution,” brought a funky rock sound to play. The music site Pitchfork called the record a “radical departure” from her earlier work, and noted in its glowing review, “The harmonic language remains rooted in jazz, but … the music doesn’t seem to be ‘from’ anywhere: It seems most concerned with establishing space, creating room for possibility. Even the more conventional songs like ‘One,’ ‘Noble Nobles’ and ‘Unconditional Love’ feel expansive and rich.”

The four-time Grammy winner will bring her trio – with Matt Stevens on guitar and Justin Tyson on drums – to the Palouse this weekend as the Saturday night headliner for the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival. There won’t be much of “Emily” on display, Spalding said in a phone interview from her home in Portland.

“We might do one song,” she said. “But we’re doing to do a lot of music from my previous records and a couple new songs. And I’m going to be singing and playing acoustic bass and electric bass. But it’s the kind of set where it’s more about us playing the songs and sharing the music and our relationships to ourselves musically.”

Spalding, 32, discovered bass as a teenager and at 15 started playing gigs in Portland clubs. Soon she was writing songs for the indie pop-rock group Noise for Pretend. She went on to study music at Portland State University then at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Her first album, “Junjo,” came out in 2006.

Three more albums followed, “Esperanza” (2008), “Chamber Music Society (2010) and her top 10 release “Radio Music Society” (2012), before “Emily’s D+Evolution” came out in March 2016.

The album was a change in sound. Spalding said she was inspired to “to challenge myself to stand by what I was hearing and not worry about where it landed.”

With her classical and indie rock background and a willingness to embrace whatever sounds appeal to her at the time, she doesn’t worry about labels. Her albums have explored soul and big-band swing, pop and gospel. She identifies as a jazz musician. “But it’s not the total definition of who I am or what I do,” she said.

“When I started getting into jazz or into any music that I’ve dabbled in, it’s always been, ‘Hell with it, I’m going to show up and bring what I got and figure it out and play some sounds with you guys.’ I don’t think it matters what your background is for that. Sometimes it can be easier if you come thinking that you’ve got nothing, because then you come ready to absorb it all.

“I can definitely say with jazz it felt so foreign to me technically, the theory of it was so completely new, that I really just at first absorbed it viscerally, with my ears,” Spalding added. “It took many years for me to unpack the technicality of what was happening.”