Samba Em Prelúdio is a gentle samba in the bossa nova style (a style from Brazil) written by Roberto Baden Powell Aquino in 1962. This song is a fusion of Brazilian samba and jazz.

Esperanza Spanding's cover of the song is quite simple, featuring vocals, acoustic guitar and acoustic bass guitar. Esperanza Spalding sings and plays the bass, but there is no specific credit on the album for a guitarist. A second acoustic guitar part appears in the guitar solo, although it is simplified and played by one guitarist in their live performances.

Vocals:

The vocal line is low in the female range, using the chest register.
It covers a range of a minor tenth (an octave plus a minor third) from E below middle C to the G above.
The words are set syllabically, with one musical note to each syllable of text.
The vocal line contains many leaps, and also some quite complex rhythms – triplets, semiquavers, rests.
Esperanza’s performance keeps closely to the printed pitches of the score, but there is variation in the performance of the rhythms and of the tempo – a performance technique known as rubato.

Accompaniment:

The bass part is active and does much more than play the root of the chord.
The very opening of the piece features a virtuosic bass solo with use of double stops, wide leaps, rapid semiquaver passages, a mordent and a harmonic.
In verse 1 (before the acoustic guitar enters), the bass appears to be playing two parts, with lower bass notes alternating with higher chords, rather like a ragtime piano accompaniment.
The acoustic guitar joins the accompaniment from bar 23 onwards and plays a virtuosic solo between Verse 2 and bar 89.
The guitar pays a mixture of plucked chords and small melodic passages, some of which cover the long notes at the end of vocal phrases. There are also passages where the guitar line seems to imitate the vocal part.

Esperanza Spalding: ‘Samba Em Prelúdio’