Esperanza Spalding rides the wave of artistic jazz

"WAYNE Shorter told me, 'You can do something for a hundred years, make a trillion dollars and that still doesn't mean it's anything of value,' " Esperanza Spalding reflected recently. "He said the important thing is to 'do something that feels right, that's important to you, that you feel good about.' "

While she didn't put the comment in context, perhaps the sax master was counseling the 26-year-old after her controversial best new artist win at February's 53rd annual Grammy Awards.

If the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences membership had been voting with their wallets instead of their hearts, teen idol Justin Bieber would have walked away with that honor. Instead, the majority vote gave it to the virtuoso-bass-playing, lightly trilling and expansively composing Spalding, the first true jazz artist ever to win the new-artist prize, on the basis of an album that couldn't be more far-out.

Her "Chamber Music Society" set, also featuring prominently in Spalding's ensemble gig at the Merriam Theater tonight, is a free-wheeling mash-up of all her favorite things.

There's dazzling, dreamy improvisational jazz, balmy Brazilian samba (airborne with Esperanza's lilting scat vocals), a touch of classic pop (covering the Johnny Mathis hit "Wild is the Wind"), plus high-falutin', string-ensemble-scored elements that lend a touch of modern chamber-music class (the genre known as third stream).

Her Grammy, a triumph of art over commerce, has brought many interview seekers to Spalding's door, she noted with a careful-what-you-wish-for laugh, plus some major photo opps. Did you spot her Afro-mod-tressed persona a few weeks back on the cover of the fall fashion edition of The New York Times' T Magazine?

I gleefully reminded her that we'd first spoken three years ago when she was still generally unknown and making ends meet teaching classes at her alma mater, Berklee College of of Music in Boston. I'd been lured in by her major label debut, "Esperanza," and by fans/advocates like Pat Metheny, who'd clued she had "something special, the X factor."

The PR buzz bomb since her Grammy win also has helped Spalding land prime spots on some really big concerts, including Rock in Rio with her Brazilian hero (and mine) Milton Nascimento (he guests on "Chamber Music Society"), a set of shows opening for Prince and surprising exposure here this summer at the Roots Picnic, an otherwise hip-hop/funk/alt-rock event.