Saxophonist MELISSA ALDANA to Release New Album “Back Home”

Tenor Saxophonist &
2013 Thelonious Monk Competition Winner
MELISSA ALDANA
Releases Fourth Album
BACK HOME
Out March 11th on Wommusic

Acclaimed tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana follows up her 2014 Concord release Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio with the explorative and deeply swinging Back Home, this time released on the Wommusic label. Pablo Menares, Aldana’s fellow native of Santiago, Chile, is again on bass. On drums is the in-demand Jochen Rueckert, bringing a supple and unpredictable rhythmic élan to the session. These three musicians turn on a dime and project an uncommonly full orchestral sound, rich in spiritual intensity, all in the absence of a harmony instrument. The album is now available for pre-order on iTunes at an introductory price of $7.99, but will revert to $10.99 on the official release day, March 11th.

The title Back Home might seem to evoke Chile, where Aldana left in 2007 to pursue jazz at ever higher levels in the U.S. In fact, Aldana reveals, Back Home “is not really related to Chile itself. It’s related to the first time I picked up the tenor and I heard Sonny Rollins.” The closing title track carries strong echoes of Rollins’ playful spirit, and reveals much about Aldana’s evolution from a 6-year-old alto player to one of the most compelling and prodigious tenor saxophonists of her time. In fact she wrote the title track, “Back Home,” specifically for Rollins, she recalls: “He was one of the first reasons I started playing trio, because the freedom that you have within the music, the interaction, the opportunity you have to express yourself and communicate with the other musicians.”

As a child Aldana studied with her renowned saxophonist father Marcos Aldana (son of saxophonist Enrique Aldana, whose Selmer Mark VI tenor Melissa performs with to this day). She began on alto but after hearing the landmark Sonny Rollins + 4 she switched to tenor and never looked back. Other important influences she cites range from Don Byas, Gene Ammons and Lucky Thompson to Chris Potter and Mark Turner.

In 2007 Aldana moved to Boston to enroll at Berklee, coming under the mentorship of tenor great George Garzone. Pianist Danilo Pérez and saxophonist Patricia Zarate provided Aldana with crucial support and guidance as well. In 2009 she took the plunge to New York and began apprenticing with greats such as Greg Osby and George Coleman, among others. In 2013 she became the first female instrumentalist and the first South American ever to win the Thelonious Monk Competition. She is also a recipient of the Martin E. Segal Award from Jazz at Lincoln Center and a double recipient of the Altazor Award, Chile’s highly prestigious national arts prize.

“Jochen and Pablo are both great writers and I love the taste they have for music,” Aldana says. “Even though I’m the bandleader and I bring a lot of the music, I love to play the music of the people that I’m playing with, and I love for everyone to feel involved. I think of the band more as a collective, and it’s refreshing for me to play their music.”

Aldana’s choice of the classic Weill/Gershwin ballad “My Ship” is also rooted in home: “It’s one of the first ballads that I heard with my dad,” she says. “I wanted to record it because it brings back memories of me and my dad learning music. The way that my dad rehearsed, the way that he practiced — that’s all a part of who I am right now.” On previous dates Aldana has recorded “I’ll Be Seeing You,” “You’re My Everything” and Thelonious Monk’s “Ask Me Now.” “Initially all those tunes are related to some period of my life — it might be where I heard the tune for the first time, or the things I was going through. The songs all have meanings related to my experience.”

Back Home was recorded at Sear Sound on June 6+7, 2015. It was engineered (tracked and mixed) by James Farber and mastered by Greg Calbi, two of the top recording engineers in the world. Unlike the Crash Trio album, this time Aldana and the trio played together in the same room instead of using separation. The end result is a more intimate, full-bodied sound, with exceptional clarity, expanse and color.

As the trio charts new terrain and evolves in its musical identity, Aldana remarks, “I do feel that there’s continuity from the last album but perhaps some added maturity. We were working and touring a lot, performing one day at large outdoor stages like the Playboy Jazz Festival in LA, then the next at intimate clubs like Smalls in New York, and I’m trying to bring in all the experience and things that I learned these past two years. I went to many really different places, hanging out with the guys, rehearsing back in New York, composing new music. I feel on this album there’s a more mature band sound that’s starting to emerge.”

RELEASE DATE: March 11th, 2016 on Wommusic

Upcoming Tour Dates:

· March 10-13 SFJazz, San Francisco, CA
· March 14 Kuumbwa Jazz Center, Santa Cruz, CA
· March 17-18 Dazzle, Denver, CO
· March 30-31 Birdland, New York City, NY
· April 26 Regatta Bar, Cambridge, MA
· April 27-30 St. Louis Jazz, St. Louis, MO
· May 5-8 Jazz Showcase, Chicago, IL
· 6/25 Tri-C Jazz Festival, Cleveland, OH

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