Date/Time
Date(s) - 09/21/2014
5:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Location
Joe Henderson Lab, SFJAZZ Center
Category(ies)
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Concert sets at 7pm and 8:30pm.
“A searching and self-assured young tenor saxophonist.” — The New York Times
“She is planting her flag in a sax player’s jazz world that clearly and deservedly belongs now to her.” — JazzTimes
- Melissa Aldana — tenor saxophone
- Pablo Menares — bass
- Francisco Mela — drums
At 24, Chilean-born tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana seemed to come out of nowhere to win the prestigious, hotly contested 2013 Thelonious Monk Competition. She may have been a dark horse, but her captivating sound and bold creative vision have been nurtured by some of jazz’s most perspicacious talent scouts. Born in Santiago, she was a teenage standout on the Chilean jazz scene when an encounter with Danilo Perez left the Panamanian pianist so impressed he recruited her for Berklee College of Music, which she ended up attending on an all-expenses Berklee Presidential Scholarship. Focusing on improvisation and composition, she studied with heavyweight saxophonists like Joe Lovano, Bill Pierce, and Greg Osby, who released her acclaimed 2010 debut album Free Fall and 2012’s follow up Second Cycle on his Inner Circle Music label. Melissa Aldana and Crash Trio is her Concord Records debut, a sensational session featuring Chilean bassist Pablo Menares and extraordinary Cuban drummer Francisco Mela. But her mentors don’t get all the credit for her rapid rise. Her grandfather was a thriving swing saxophonist in 1950s France, and her father Marcos Aldana competed in the 1991 Monk Competition that launched Joshua Redman’s career. Maybe we should have seen her coming.
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