Building upon 'Visions,' Melissa Aldana looks within on '12 Stars'

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Creative artists have had all sorts of responses to the pandemic. Especially crucial has been having to address the difficulty of securing work as performances dried up, starting two years ago.  When they were not bringing their art to the public, they had more time than usual to go to the woodshed and work on new paths forward.

Melissa Aldana looks out from a position of self-trust.
Melissa Aldana, whose 2019 CD "Visions" stemmed from her responses to visual art, chiefly that of Frida Kahlo, has drawn on a different inspiration this time. "12 Stars" draws upon tarot cards, as a way to learn about individual destiny and choices. Both directions, toward interpreting either the Mexican artist or  tarot,  require engagement with a special symbolic world.

The tenor saxophonist, born in Chile and now living in Brooklyn, has a group on this recording that's different from this tour, coming here at the end of the week. 

When she plays two sets at the Jazz Kitchen on Saturday night, two musicians continue as the basis of the rhythm section: bassist Pablo Menares and drummer Kush Abadey. The recording features a quintet consisting of Sullivan Fortner, a 2015 American Pianists Association laureate, and guitarist Lage Lund, who is also the bandleader's collaborator in "12 Stars"' compositions and arrangements.

Fortner adds major value to "12 Stars," playing with flow and wit, and it will be interesting to see how the omission of his deft interpretations of the music at the piano is compensated for. Replacing Lund, Mike Moreno has considerable creative heft to lend to Aldana's group on guitar; in 2015, his leadership on "Lotus" impressed me. So the music here should be both a showcase for the leader and a clarifying exhibition of her ability to assemble a compatible group of colleagues.

As I noted with "Visions," on "12 Stars" her tone is well-integrated in all registers. She gets around the horn not only with facility, but also with a knack for making such well-traveled displays sound  significant. In "Intuition," for example, a piece she says in a note is about trust in oneself, the searching feeling of her improvisational phrases always sounds grounded in an identity that indicates self-acceptance and a basis for proceeding.

The three-quarter-hour program of eight originals ends with the succinct title tune, named for the number of stars in the crown of tarot's Empress card. Whatever your relationship
to occult matters, this music has a candid appeal as an established young star continues to show her mastery.

 





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