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Melissa Aldana: 12 Stars
by Chris May
Before we get into tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana's album--which is excellent, so hang on in there--a word about press releases and publicity campaigns. Specifically, those from Blue Note. The label's headquarters in Los Angeles is in danger of becoming known for award-winning b.s. in this regard, as demonstrated during the campaign for Aldana's label debut. Here is an example: 12 Stars, we are told, “grapples with concepts of childrearing, familial forgiveness, acceptance, and self-love." Given that there is ...
Continue ReadingMelissa Aldana: Sound, Time, Ideas
by Leo Sidran
Melissa Aldana is meeting her moment right now. At 33 years old, she's already a quarter of a century into a musical trip that started in Santiago, Chile. Her father and grandfather were both jazz saxophone players in Chile, and she started early, at six years old, on the alto sax. She and her father would listen to Charlie Parker, and, as she tells it, try to understand the emotional content of the music.When a few years later ...
Continue ReadingMelissa Aldana: 12 Stars
by Angelo Leonardi
Presente da alcuni anni ai vertici dei sondaggi dei critici di Down Beat, la sassofonista cilena Melissa Aldana ha da poco superato i 30 anni e in un decennio s'è imposta con un talento magistrale. Dopo cinque incisioni in proprio (l'ultima Visions le è valsa una nomination ai Grammy per il miglior assolo improvvisato nel brano “Elsewhere") ora debutta con l'etichetta Blue Note accompagnata dalla parole del suo presidente Don Was: «È tra i massimi musicisti e compositori della sua ...
Continue ReadingMelissa Aldana: 12 Stars
by Mike Jurkovic
Many musicians have chosen their Blue Note moment to reveal themselves as the artist they are or intend to be. So it is not surprising that a young, gifted artist such as Grammy nominee Melissa Aldana, riding a sure, ascendant arc both creatively and professionally, goes big on her Blue Note debut. From the start, 12 Stars is the exact antithesis of the parlance of isolation. It is a confab of equals. Though in her notes the saxophonist ...
Continue ReadingEmmet Cohen: Future Stride
by Mike Jurkovic
As proven onstage as well as on such percolating, locomotive recordings as 2018's self released Dirty In Detroit, Masters Legacy Series Vol 1 with Jimmy Cobb (Cellar Live, 2016), 2018's Masters Legacy Series Vol 2 with Ron Carter (Cellar Live), and his regular Monday Night Quarantine Jams on Facebook, pianist Emmet Cohen makes his music with an unabashed, heart-on-you-sleeve exuberance and love for the future as past and vice versa. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that ...
Continue ReadingArtemis: Artemis
by Mike Jurkovic
It's truly exhilarating yet sadly mundane and reductive that a recording as vital and victorious as Artemis will be universally hailed as a first from an all-female supergroup. That it cuts across all generational, cultural, international, and ethnic planes. That Blue Note Records has expanded its ever legendary ranks to include, well, you know, a female group. It's like the more we think we've gotten past these worn, tired types of qualifiers we realize all the more we really haven't. ...
Continue ReadingMelissa Aldana: Visiones de una verdadera artista
by Patricia López
La galardonada Melissa Aldana es la saxofonista más joven de su familia. Nacida en Santiago, Chile, comenzó a tocar el saxofón cuando tenía seis años. Con una importante influencia de su abuelo y las enseñanzas de su padre Marcos Aldana, empezó a estudiar saxofón alto. Pero después de escuchar a Sonny Rollins, su corazón se identificó con la voz del tenor. Melissa ha dado el salto para convertirse en la primera mujer de su familia que trabaja para imponerse en ...
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