Song:Bring Him Home
Album:Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio
Tenor sax player Melissa Aldana made a big splash last year with her major label debut Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio. She was born in Santiago, Chile in 1988. Her father is tenor sax player Marcos Aldana. At age six, she started bugging him about learning to play. He bought her an alto sax and had her learn from Charlie Parker transcriptions. After listening to Sonny Rollins, Melissa wanted to switch to tenor sax. Her grandfather bought her one and by age 16, she was playing local clubs in Santiago. When she heard that pianist Danilo Perez was coming to town with Wayne Shorter, she was determined to meet him. Perez invited her to play at the Panamanian Jazz Festival. Then he brought her to the US and got her a scholarship at Berklee School Of Music in Boston. She studied with Joe Lovano and Greg Osby. After graduation, Melissa moved to New York City and studied with George Coleman and played local clubs. After releasing a couple of CDs on Osby's Inner Circle label, she formed Crash Trio with bassist Pablo Menares and drummer Francisco Mela. She knew Menares from back home in Chile. Mela is a Cuban who has played with Joe Lovano and Esperanza Spalding. Melissa won the 2013 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. She was the first female to win the sax competition. The jurors were Jane Ira Bloom, Branford Marsalis, Jimmy Heath, Wayne Shorter and Bobby Watson. This got Melissa a deal with Concord Jazz. Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio is her 2014 major label debut. The CD did great and Melissa is out on tour. She will be in Sweden in January and then will tour the US in the spring. If she comes my way, I'm checking her out. And so should you. Here's Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio performing Bring Him Home at The Red Room at Cafe 939 at the Berklee College of Music in Boston Oct. 9, 2013.
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