Melissa Aldana | News | Infotext: Melissa Aldana - 12 Stars

 

Tenor Saxophone: Melissa Aldana / Guitar & Sound Effects: Lage Lund
Piano & Fender Rhodes: Sullivan Fortner / Bass: Pablo Menares / Drums: Kush Abadey
Produced by Melissa Aldana & Lage Lund

Die GRAMMY-nominierte Saxophonistin und Komponistin Melissa Aldana ist jetzt auch als Solistin Teil der Blue-Note-Familie, nachdem sie dort bereits als Mitglied des Kollektivs ARTEMIS Aufsehen erregte.

Die in Brooklyn lebende Chilenin hat sich internationale Anerkennung für ihre visionäre Arbeit als Solistin und Bandleaderin erworben. Ihr Blue-Note-Debüt „12 Stars“ wurde von Gitarrist Lage Lund produziert, das Quintett ergänzen Sullivan Fortner an Piano und Fender Rhodes, Kush Abadey am Schlagzeug und Pablo Menares am Bass.

„Es fühlt sich ein wenig unwirklich an, bei Blue Note unter Vertrag zu sein“, sagt Aldana. „Es gibt so viel Blue-Note-Musik, die ich im Laufe der Jahre gespielt habe, die mich beeinflusst und mir eine Richtung gegeben hat. Ich fühle mich enorm geehrt, Teil des Labels und dessen Erbes zu sein.“

„Melissa ist eine der führenden Musikerinnen und Komponistinnen ihrer Generation“, sagt Blue-Note-Präsident Don Was. „Ihre lebendige, künstlerische Vision, die absolute Beherrschung ihres Instruments und ihr tiefer Groove machen sie zu einer perfekten Vertreterin des Blue Note-Ethos“

Aldana war eines der Gründungsmitglieder von ARTEMIS, des weiblichen All-Star-Kollektivs, das 2020 sein gleichnamiges Debütalbum auf Blue Note veröffentlichte. Das Album enthielt u.a. Aldanas kochende Komposition „Frida“, die der mexikanischen Malerin Frida Kahlo gewidmet war, die die Musikerin durch „ihre Selbstfindung durch Kunst“ inspirierte.

Melissa Aldana wurde in Santiago, Chile geboren und wuchs in einer musikalischen Familie auf. Sowohl ihr Vater als auch Großvater waren Saxophonisten und sie nahm das Instrument im Alter von sechs Jahren unter der Anleitung ihres Vaters Marcos auf. Aldana begann auf dem Altsaxophon, beeinflusst von Künstlern wie Charlie Parker und Cannonball Adderley, wechselte aber zum Tenor, als sie zum ersten Mal die Musik von Sonny Rollins hörte. Als Teenagerin trat sie in Jazzclubs in Santiago auf und wurde 2005 vom Pianisten Danilo Pérez eingeladen, beim Panama Jazz Festival zu spielen.

Aldana zog in die USA, um das Berklee College of Music zu besuchen, ein Jahr nach ihrem Abschluss veröffentlichte sie 2010 ihr erstes Album „Free Fall“ auf Greg Osbys Label Inner Circle, gefolgt von „Second Cycle“ im Jahr 2012. 2013 wurde sie mit 24 Jahren die erste weibliche Instrumentalistin und erste südamerikanische Musikerin, die die „Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition“ gewann. Nach ihrem Sieg veröffentlichte sie ihr drittes Album „Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio“ (Concord). Sie ist auch eine gefragte Lehrerin, das New England Conservatory hat sie kürzlich an seine Jazzfakultät berufen.

GRAMMY-nominated saxophonist and composer Melissa Aldana joins the Blue Note Records family with the release of 12 Stars, her debut album as a leader for the legendary Jazz label. At 32, the Brooklyn-based tenor player from Santiago, Chile has garnered international recognition for her visionary work as a band leader, as well as her deeply meditative interpretation of language and vocabulary. 

12 Stars grapples with concepts of childrearing, familial forgiveness, acceptance, and self-love. “This is a really important album for me,” says Aldana. “I felt like I had so much to say because of all the experiences I had during 2020. After the personal process I went through last year, I feel more connected to myself and my own imperfections — and I’ve discovered that it’s the same process with music. Embracing everything I hear, everything I play — even mistakes — is more meaningful than perfection.”

Throughout her career, Aldana has gravitated toward collaborators who let her sound exist and resonate without restraint. She develops profound connections with bandmates, and the personnel and producer she chose for 12 Stars is no exception. “I love playing with musicians that are strongly rooted in tradition but, at the same time, very open-minded when it comes to music,” she says. The album was produced by the Norwegian guitarist Lage Lund, who also performs as part of a remarkable quintet with Sullivan Fortner on piano and Fender Rhodes, Kush Abadey on drums, and Aldana’s longtime collaborator and confidant Pablo Menares on bass.

A sixth collaborator contributed the album artwork. Aldana asked her close friend, vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant to share her talents as a visual artist for the release, and many of the album’s themes are manifested in Salvant’s sublime cover illustration. “It felt very natural for me to have her as part of this project,” says Aldana.  

Inspired by the arcs and nuances of tarot, 12 Stars features a series of tributes to moments of challenge and triumph in Aldana’s New York life. She titled the album after the 12 stars that adorn The Empress’ crown. “In numerology and tarot, The Empress is a symbol of creation,” she says. “She represents my essence as an individual, and this entire journey.” Aldana also sought to spotlight her vulnerabilities and celebrate them as part of her artistic process. Her decision to collaborate with Lund rendered Aldana vulnerable, so she chose to indulge that discomfort. 

“I’m allowing somebody to enter my music and move things around, which is something I’ve never done before,” she says. “But Lage knows me very well, and I knew that he would be the right person. I wanted to learn by watching his process, to see how he took my music and rearranged it to reflect how he thought about the album.” 

Just before the lockdown, Aldana separated from her husband. Alone in Harlem, she told herself she’d be busy for years, with plenty of distractions from dealing with her complex emotional response. “But then,” she says, “the pandemic hit, and I hit bottom.” She needed to make changes, so she turned inward. “Because of that personal process, I feel even more connected to my music.” Even the way she practiced changed, allowing her to explore new concepts and endure discomfort. 

Throughout 12 Stars, Aldana’s thoughtful development of bold, melodic statements reaches new levels of persistence. Engineered and mixed by James Farber at Samurai Hotel Studios in Queens, the tracks emit a warm clarity that serves Aldana’s intention. “I wanted to go to the studio and worry about the music and nothing else,” she says. “I knew having James there would allow us to do that.” The mix also features a kind of vertical depth Aldana credits Farber and Lund as having orchestrated intuitively. 

The album presents seven striking new original compositions that were co-written by Aldana and Lage including the opening piece “Falling,” which introduces Lund’s bold harmonic and textural presence immediately. Between statements and inquiries, Aldana develops her solo rapidly, Fortner’s spontaneity connecting to hers at every turn. “Intuition” proffers one of the album’s most striking melodies. At once commanding and conversational, the tune serves Aldana’s extended arcs of lyrical development. 

Named for the imagined daughter she met in a dream, “Emilia” features a haunting introduction from Lund and Menares, and a lingering melody line Aldana remembers singing to her dream child as a lullaby. “The Bluest Eye,” titled in tribute to Toni Morrison’s literary and cultural masterpiece, provides the musicians a prism for interactivity. Abadey’s reflexive energy pulses from one section to the next. Aldana’s solo intro to the album’s title track reveals a sound that contains multitudes — regret, determination, joy and acceptance. Exposed and unadorned, “12 Stars” presents Aldana at her most lyrical and contemplative. 

“Especially during quarantine, I spent so much time going super deep into sound,” she says. “I became very aware of what I like, what I don’t like — being very thoughtful about it. In this album, I can hear that I’ve moved one step forward with that. And that makes me feel very inspired to keep working on the sound and trying to find what I want to say.”

Aldana was one of the founding members of ARTEMIS, the all-star collective that released their self-titled debut on Blue Note in 2020. The album featured Aldana’s simmering composition “Frida,” which was dedicated to Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, who inspired the musician through “her own process of finding self-identity through art.”

Kahlo was also the subject of Aldana’s celebrated 2019 album Visions (Motéma), which earned the saxophonist her first-ever GRAMMY nomination for Best Improvised Jazz Solo, an acknowledgement of her impressive tenor solo on her composition “Elsewhere.” In naming Visions among the best albums of 2019 for NPR Music, critic Nate Chinen wrote that Aldana “has the elusive ability to balance technical achievement against a rich emotional palette.”

Aldana was born in Santiago, Chile and grew up in a musical family. Both her father and grandfather were saxophonists, and she took up the instrument at age six under her father Marcos’ tutelage. Aldana began on alto, influenced by artists such as Charlie Parker and Cannonball Adderley, but switched to tenor upon first hearing the music of Sonny Rollins, who would become a hero and mentor. She performed in Santiago jazz clubs in her early teens and was invited by pianist Danilo Pérez to play at the Panama Jazz Festival in 2005.

Aldana moved to the U.S. to attend the Berklee College of Music, and the year after graduating she released her first album Free Fall on Greg Osby’s Inner Circle label in 2010, followed by Second Cycle in 2012. In 2013, at 24, she became the first female instrumentalist and the first South American musician to win the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition, in which her father had been a semi-finalist in 1991. After her win, she released her third album Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio (Concord). Aldana is also an in-demand clinician and educator and has recently been appointed to the faculty of the New England Conservatory’s Jazz Studies Department.

 

Uwe Kerkau Promotion, Tel: 02206 – 80007
u.kerkau@uk-promotion.de

 

Rosita Falke Media Promotion
info@rosita-falke.de, Tel: 040 – 413 545 05