Melissa Aldana Introduces 'Filin' Album With 'La Sentencia' Video
(MPG) On Feb. 13, Melissa Aldana will release Filin, a stunning ballads album that presents a collection of songs drawn from Cuba's filin music tradition performed by a remarkable quartet featuring pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, bassist Peter Washington, and drummer Kush Abadey, as well as special guest vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant. The third Blue Note album by the GRAMMY-nominated tenor saxophonist, Filin is introduced today with the music video for the gorgeous lead single "La Sentencia."
For as long as she's been a recording artist, the Chilean-born saxophonist has wanted to make a ballads record. With archetypes like John Coltrane's classic 1963 LP Ballads as her North Star, Aldana saw a slow-tempo project as a way to advance her lifelong quest for sound.
"I transcribe Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane, Joe Henderson, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, and Don Byas, among many others. For them the sound itself is a tool to express an emotion," she explains. "Every single note is a whole world. So there is a technical side to playing, but then there is this mystical side of sound that... I still don't know exactly what it is." A ballads record, she believed, would help her burrow deeper into the essence of her sound.
To start, she reached out to Rubalcaba, a revered pianist and one of her "biggest heroes" who she has longed to work with at project-length. His suggestion proved a revelation: Aldana should interpret the filin music of his native Cuba, a gorgeous yet still-unheralded tradition of richly arranged romantic song that thrived between the late 1940s and early 1960s. Filin - the word derives from "feeling" - "created a dialogue between traditional Cuban trova, the bolero and jazz, redefining Cuban musical identity," Rubalcaba explains. "Filin elevated lyrics to a level of greater poetic and colloquial intimacy, and gave rise to instrumentalists and singers of great virtuosity and creative elegance."
To Aldana, filin songs presented a deeply meaningful new ideal: They reminded her of the lovelorn standards she'd internalized as a jazz saxophonist, but with lyrics sung in her native tongue. "They felt like the ballads that I love from the Great American Songbook," she says, "but because the lyrics are in Spanish, I was able to connect to these songs in a way that I never thought I could."
With Rubalcaba as her guide, she began exploring the history of filin music and working with him to pare down the songs that spoke to her. A plan coalesced: Rubalcaba would craft the arrangements and play piano alongside the rhythm tandem of Washington and Abadey. Aldana's dear friend McLorin Salvant, would sing on two numbers, and Blue Note Records President Don Was would produce, offering his trademark oversight, at once discerning, empathic and open.
The end product is, in a word, stunning. It's also unlike anything else in Aldana's catalog - or in 21st-century jazz on the whole. Throughout these eight tracks, the ensemble enacts a kind of stirring and emotional minimalism - a quiet intensity that places paramount importance on Aldana's radiant delivery of the melody. This music moves slowly, simmering forward with great deliberation and restraint, which is all the more impressive once you consider the runaway virtuosity these players are capable of.
Perhaps most remarkable, however, is the fact that this incredibly patient program is never less than compelling; like great cinema, it holds its audience rapt without bells and whistles. When Aldana solos, she plays in a way that contrasts the longform harmonic probings she's best known for. Her improvising here is mellifluous and moves like gossamer, with a newfound focus on accenting the core tunefulness. "I wasn't trying to play the perfect jazz solo," she says. "I was just trying to play inside the band - to leave space and be as present as I could, let the songs breathe. I'm older too, so I might be feeling less like I have something to prove. I also just felt in my gut that I wanted to do a ballads record," she adds, "that I have something to say."
MELISSA ALDANA - TOUR DATES:
Jan. 9 - Birdland Theater - New York, NY
Jan. 17 - SFJAZZ - San Francisco, CA
Jan. 20 - Sam First - Los Angeles, CA
Jan. 21 - Sam First - Los Angeles, CA
Feb. 11 - Bebop Club - Buenos Aires, Argentina
Feb. 12 - Bebop Club - Buenos Aires, Argentina
Feb. 14 - Festival de Jazz de San Juan - San Juan, Argentina
Feb. 17 - Teatro Municipal de Vi-a del Mar - Valparaíso Chile
Feb. 18 - Teatro Nescafe de las Artes - Santiago Chile
Mar. 17 - Music Center De Bijloke - Ghent, Belgium
Mar. 18 - Fasching - Stockholm, Sweden
Mar. 19 - Teatro Sociale - Bergamo, Italy
Mar. 20 - Zig Zag Bar - Berlin, Germany
Mar. 21 - Koln Philharmonie - Koln, Germany
Mar. 24 - Teatro Metropolitan - Catania, Italy
Mar. 25 - Teatro Golden - Palermo, Italy
Mar. 27 - Menorca Jazz Festival - Menorca, Spain
Mar. 28 - Clarence Jazz Club - Málaga - Spain
June 19 - Birdland - New York, NY
June 20 - Birdland - New York, NY
June 21 - Birdland - New York, NY
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