Bassist Esperanza Spalding takes on new persona in 'Emily' tour

At a time when most jazz artists can work a lifetime with little more than modest recognition for their efforts, Esperanza Spalding has achieved remarkable success at age 30.

The bassist/vocalist has demonstrated her versatility, showing off her acoustic jazz chops on her 2011 release, Chamber Music Society, and her R&B songwriting skills on its 2012 companion piece, Radio Music Society. She's netted four Grammys, including her notorious besting of Justin Bieber for the 2011 best new artist award. And she's become an instantly recognizable figure with her trademark Afro.

Perhaps Spalding's most remarkable trait, however, is her insistence on venturing into new territory. On her Emily's D+Evolution Tour, which stops in at the TLA on Sunday, she's not only written an entirely new batch of songs but also created an alternate identity for herself, replacing her usual look with long braids, oversize glasses, and a funky style somewhere between awkward and eccentric.

Emily also just happens to be Spalding's middle name, and it's how her family referred to her as a child. "When somebody calls me Emily," she says by phone from her home in Brooklyn, "it reminds me of things that I used to think about and want and wish for, things I could do and be and try. It was certainly a less 'evolved' version of myself, but there's still a lot of fertile ground that's never been cultivated in the thoughts, emotions, and dreams from when I was less evolved."

The character she's taking on in this run of shows, which will also result in a new album, is thus "obviously a reflection of a younger me," Spalding explains. "It's the space between evolving and devolving that doesn't place a hierarchy on one direction as opposed to the other. It's the challenge of being in that space and being OK with it."

The notion of taking on an alternate persona also came from Spalding's younger years, when she would routinely invent fictional histories for herself upon meeting new people. "I wouldn't go so far as to say I was a pathological liar, but when I was 11 or 12, I would develop these amazingly intricate backstories about myself. Maybe some psychoanalyst reading this would be able to tell me what condition that was, but what I recognize as an artist is the deep desire to act and to take on personas.

"I've always loved to do that, and I could fool people pretty damn well until someone came over to my house and realized that it was all phoney baloney.

"I had the satisfaction of creating this dynamic with another person, living in it and seeing how far I could take it," Spalding says. "I liked figuring out how I could fill in the blanks as they came up, which in a way is what we do when we improvise. You're in this agreed-upon context, and you respond in the rules of that pretend-world to whatever comes your way from moment to moment with other people who are throwing you curveballs."

Spalding refuses to describe the Emily's D+Evolution project, insisting it's constantly evolving and changing. But West Coast shows reportedly interspersed dialogue and action between the short, soulful songs. She was inspired to head in a more theatrical direction after seeing intricately choreographed concerts by St. Vincent and Janelle Monáe, while also drawing inspiration from surrealist poetry, experimental theater, and the "poem-plays" of writer Ruth Krauss.

"I'm not quite sure why the original idea for Emily came, but it did," Spalding says, "and I've been taught somewhere along the way that whatever you're most uncomfortable doing artistically is always due north. The direction that you're least comfortable going is the way of growth, and you have to go there. So when these ideas came, I thought, 'All right, let's see what this is all about.' "

Throughout her career, Spalding has had the advantage of working with adventurous elders who encouraged her to take these kinds of chances, which isn't always the case in the sometimes conservative jazz mentality. "Your life is your trip, and you get to make the art that you want to make," Spalding says. "And that's all I can say in defense of myself: It's my trip, and I just hope other people like this phase of it."

Esperanza Spalding: The Emily's D+Evolution Tour

8 p.m. Sunday at Theatre of Living Arts, 334 South St.

Tickets: $30.

Information: 215-922-2599 or www.tlaphilly.comEndText