IT’S A COLD MARCH Friday night in New York City, but the crowd inside the Village Vanguard crackles with warmth as it engages with the robust music of Melissa Aldana’s quintet. A hallowed basement room that’s generally as quiet as you’d expect jazz’s mother church to be is full of clapping, whistling, cheering, even whooping by the end of the 75-minute set, all of which is made up of material from Aldana’s new album 12 Stars, which has just hit streaming services today (the album’s physical release is scheduled for later in April). This is also the Chilean saxophonist’s first-ever run headlining the Vanguard, which has attracted much younger and more diverse crowds than normal for the club—especially a lot of students, according to one server that night.
You can see the energy course through Aldana on stage. Her generation’s inheritor of the lineages of Sonny Rollins and Mark Turner, she’s a prominently physical player, constantly rocking to the beat; rising on her toes and crouching over in turn as she explores higher and lower tones during solos; leaning constantly into the music. “My knees are so sore!” she exclaims outside the OYO Midtown on Sunday, the last day of her Vanguard run, when we meet to talk about these two major events in her life.
In an Instagram post that same day, Aldana writes that her week at the Village Vanguard “has been one of the most beautiful weeks of my life.” However, she’s intensely aware of the responsibility she has when she’s on that stage. “It’s like a church,” she says. “I was so nervous before playing there … and then I open was completely written and recorded during the pandemic without being workshopped in front of audiences.
