12 Stars Melissa Aldana

• 1 Falling 06:22
• 2 Intuition 07:31
• 3 Intro To Emilia 00:39
• 4 Emelia 07:36
• 5 The Bluest Eye 07:23
• 6 The Fool 06:51
• 7 Los Ojos de Chile 05:42
• 8 12 Stars 03:00
• Total Runtime 45:04

Info for 12 Stars

GRAMMY-nominated saxophonist and composer Melissa Aldana will make her Blue Note Records debut with 12 Stars, her remarkable first album as a leader for the legendary label.

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 was produced by guitarist Lage Lund, who also performs as part of a quintet with Sullivan Fortner on keyboards, Pablo Menares on bass, and Kush Abadey on drums.

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, 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.”

The album presents seven striking new original compositions by Aldana that were either or arranged or co-written by Lage including the dynamic opening piece “Falling,” which is available stream or download today. Aldana explains it was “the tune I was writing when I felt that everything in my life was falling apart.” The piece 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.

Just before the lockdown, Aldana went through personal struggles with the end of a relationship. 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.”

"Abadey infers distinct rhythmic feels on “The Bluest Eyes” and “The Fool”. He tosses in a methodical ride cymbal drive for a swinging feel on the former, and paves the latter with gentle Brazilian-flavored rudiments. Both “The Fool” and the closing track, the one that gave the album its name, are a product of the bandleader’s curiosity about tarot, a practice she learned during lockdown. Aldana emerges stronger on 12 Stars, backed by competent partners who respond to her calls with appropriate action." (jazztrail.net)

Melissa Aldana, tenor saxophone
Lage Lund, guitar
Sullivan Fortner, keyboards
Pablo Menares, bass
Kush Abadey, drums

Melissa 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 acknowledgment 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.

This album contains no booklet.