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Esperanza Spalding

If the music world was shocked when Esperanza Spalding became the first jazz act to win the Best New Artist award at the 2011 Grammys, it was nothing to the shock Esperanza herself felt. Her unusual Christian name is the Spanish word for "hope" reflecting a diverse ethnic background - part-Welsh, part-Hispanic, part-native American - and she grew up in a ghetto raised by her single parent mother. Naturally gifted, however, Spalding taught herself to play violin by the time she was five, going on to spend most of her childhood playing with the Chamber Music Society of Oregon. Draw...