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Melissa Aldana: 12 Stars

By Chris May
March 24, 2022
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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 not one spoken word on the entire album, or any clues in the track titles, this is a fatuous statement. Heaven knows what Alfred Lion would have thunk.

On to better things. Aldana fronts a quintet which includes three members of the quartet she has led since 2017: guitarist

Lage Lund

guitar

" data-original-title="" title="">Lage Lund, who also produced and who co-wrote with Aldana all but the thirty-nine second snippet "Intro To Emilia," bassist

Pablo Menares

bass, acoustic

" data-original-title="" title="">Pablo Menares (who wrote "Intro To Emilia") and drummer

Kush Abadey

drums

" data-original-title="" title="">Kush Abadey. The fifth member is pianist

Sullivan Fortner

piano
b.1986

" data-original-title="" title="">Sullivan Fortner.

Aldana studied with

George Garzone

saxophone, tenor
b.1950

" data-original-title="" title="">George Garzone at Berklee and, after graduating, moved to New York to study with

George Coleman

saxophone, tenor
b.1935

" data-original-title="" title="">George Coleman. She names both players as "dear friends" in the album credits but, since debuting with Free Fall (Inner Circle, 2010), she has developed a style which outwardly owes little to either of them. It could be described as "active meditation" in that it comes across as inward looking but is infused with a degree of energy and movement not normally part of meditation practice. It is, perhaps, the cerebral version of another apparent oxymoron, "hot yoga."

Anyway, call it what you will, Aldana has got it down. So, too, her sound, which most often inhabits the middle and upper registers of the tenor, entirely avoiding harmonics and broken or vocalized tones. It is a pure, clean, athletic sound, with just a trace of vibrato on extended notes. Aldana is the key soloist throughout and so beautiful is her playing, and so inventive her ideas, that Lund and Fortner's occasional brief solos almost (almost) seem like a distraction. Fortner swaps the acoustic piano for a Rhodes on two tracks, on which he and Lund, who is credited with "gizmos" as well as guitar, conjure an enjoyably trippy ambiance. 12 Stars merits a solid four stars.

Learn more about our star rating system

Track Listing

Falling; Intuition; Intro to Emilia; Emilia; The Bluest Eye; The Fool; Los Ojos de Chile; 12 Stars.

Personnel

Melissa Aldana

saxophone

Lage Lund

guitar

Pablo Menares

bass, acoustic

Sullivan Fortner

piano

Kush Abadey

drums

Album information

Title: 12 Stars | Year Released: 2021 | Record Label: Blue Note Records

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Melissa Aldana Concerts

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Melissa Aldana Quartet - Chilean Jazz Series

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Melissa Aldana Quartet - Chilean Jazz Series

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Oct 8 Wed