Odd One Out

Running seems to be a common thread in great musicians. I’m not referring to jogging in the park between practice, but the habit of running away. In the Netflix documentary 'Quincy' (highly recommended by the way), the great Jazz producer confessed, “all my life I’ve been running, I’ve never stopped running,” when he makes an emotional return to the house he grew up in. In Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography, he put the relentless early life ‘on the road’ that formed him as an artist, down to avoiding being at home, and the fights with his father. And when I meet with Blue Note’s latest signing, Melissa Aldana, hailed as the most promising Jazz saxophonist of her generation, she also insists that going back home “was not an option” after she left Santiago, Chile, at the age of 18.

“I come from a dysfunctional family. When I went to New York it was not like, 'oh I’m not having a good time, I’ll go back home.' That was not a possibility. I had to make it work.”

Immediately there is a sense of mystery about Melissa, when I join her in a London cafe one late May afternoon. Starting with the mystery of how a saxophonist, let alone a female one, from a country with no significant jazz tradition, no black music tradition and quite a lot of sexism (I can vouch from experience) gets to become the first Latin American and the first female to win the most prestigious prize in jazz. We’ll get to that later. First back to what she ran away from.

To be clear, Melissa’s declaration about not wanting to return home is to take nothing away from the extraordinary music training she received from her dad, Marcos Aldana, also a jazz saxophonist.

“It was a process I remember enjoying,” she clarifies. “But it was also intense. I loved the saxophone. I was always the one to reach out to him, wanting to learn. My sister had no interest. She rebelled and said ‘fuck this, I don’t want to play,’ but I loved it. I think it was a way to be closer to my dad.”

Melissa started lessons with her father at the age of six.

“I’m very hard on myself and I think that comes from my dad being strict and disciplined, which I realise now was a good thing.”

But unlike many prodegés who come from musical families, she was not part of a wider musical environment, and had no access to a thriving live jazz scene.

“I didn’t see my dad perform, it was just me and him. We were in a bubble, just studying together all the time.”

The jazz scene in Santiago was small to non-existent, Melissa clarifies. “There was nothing like there is in the States where there are all sorts of workshops and jazz music being played live all the time.”

In addition to the lack of jazz tradition, we talk about the shadow cast over Chile by the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, who came to power by military coup in 1973 and governed until 1990. Pinochet’s brand of authoritarianism infused every area of life, creating a suspicion of anything cultural and creative. As a musician, this was the environment Melissa’s father would have suffered.

“Chilean society was very narrow-minded. Music was not a normal thing," Melissa explains. "But as I was only into music, I grew up very isolated, to the point that I never felt Chilean,”

Even though Melissa was only two when Pinochet gave up power, the mindset and values that his 20 year-rule established would take many years to unweave.

“It was not a society I wanted to be part of. The saxophone was a way for me to disconnect."

I suspect that the more Melissa escaped into her world, the more ‘strange’ she probably appeared to conservative Chilean society.

“At school I was the weirdo. I’d be like ‘do you know Charlie Parker?’ and they’d be like ‘what the hell are you talking about?’ Nobody had the same interests that I had. I didn’t relate to my environment. I was very disconnected from the world around me.”

By extension, unlike most South American countries, where there is a healthy jazz scene, Chile never received its share of the great musicians that would tour regularly in the 90s; the likes of Keith Jarrett, McCoy Tyner, Joe Zawinul, Mike Stern, Gonzalo Rubalcaba to name a few, who would fill out concert halls in neighbouring countries.

“You’d hear of musicians going to Brazil and Argentina, but they would never come to Chile.”

It was not until 2003 that Wayne Shorter, accompanied by Danilo Perez on the piano, played in Chile. Not only did Melissa jump at the rare chance to see the living legend of jazz saxophone, she saw it as a once in a life time opportunity to show off her talent to those who might appreciate it. The young teenager grabbed it with the desperation and hunger of someone who knew the chance might never come again.

“I was 15 and I thought 'I’m getting out of Chile’ and I knew that if I wanted to go to Berklee (College of Music) that Danilo, who already knew about me because his wife is Chilean, could be someone to help me. So I literally turned up when they were doing their sound check with my saxophone. I waited for hours and, when I finally met them, I invited them to come and see me play after the show.”

In short, Melissa literally arranged her own audition.

“I don’t know how I had the balls to do it!” She laughs. “But Danilo came and did some jamming with me and then invited me to Panama to play at the Jazz Festival that he organises there. I got to meet all the people from Berklee there.”

The rest is history. Melissa started at America's most prestigious music school in 2010 and, in 2013, took part in The Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, where, in Melissa’s own words “all the big stars have come from. People from all around the world send their tunes and the finalists are invited to perform in front of Wayne Shorter, Brandford Marsalis and others. All men.”

Melissa became not only the first Latin American to win the prize, she was also the first female.

“Everything is explained in relation to my childhood...” Melissa responds, when I ask, how the hell that happened? “…down to studying with my dad and the training he gave me. Like, even being signed to Blue Note or being on the cover of Downbeat magazine, which is like the highest thing you can achieve as a jazz artist, it's like the culmination of so many years of work.”

Perhaps, I suggest, it is precisely that she didn’t come from a country with such a massive jazz tradition, which could be overbearing, even paralysing for, say, an aspiring American jazz musician.

“I haven’t thought about that consciously but I do feel that I was very lucky to have this crazy man (my dad) who made me spend hours transcribing. He taught me how to have a good sound, to express myself. So, because I had that long tradition of transcribing (writing down what you hear when you listen to a song or piece), playing a phrase from a song over and over, I would end up memorising hundreds of solos by heart, which developed my ear. My dad was an excellent teacher.”

When I mention how proud her father must be, however, the mystery forms again like a veil around Melissa. She pauses.

“Yes, I’m sure he’s super proud. I haven’t seen him in a long time, but I’m sure he’s proud.”

We move on quickly to the other source of my wonder, that the first female musician to win the Theoloneous Monk Award should come from arguably one of Latin America’s most sexist countries, in a continent that’s already pretty sexist: I remember entering a cafe at midday in Santiago de Chile in which the waitresses served coffee to - mostly male - customers in stilettos and little more than underwear - places, I later learned, are called 'Cafes with Legs' and they only exist in Chile.

“I think growing up in Chile, which is so machista, I am normalised to a lot of chauvinism. When you grow up with sexist comments all the time, it takes longer to get to the point when you realise ‘this isn’t OK.’ In the moment, you don’t want to admit that something has made you feel bad; it can be really damaging to the soul, to see how things really work.”

We agree that it's really age that gives you the insight and confidence to call things out because, when you are younger, you don’t always clearly source the feeling of discomfort. It’s easier to just ignore it. This is why coming to terms with the fact that she herself is now a role model has been difficult, Melissa admits.

“I never really wanted to talk about my gender, I just wanted to be seen as a jazz musician. For years I was hiding and trying to be strong and tough, not just being a women but because of my family situation. I think I mixed up things in my life; it’s not always easy for me to separate emotions. But now I’ve encountered more older female musicians, it’s made me realise how they paved the way for me. They had to deal with things that I don’t have to. So, now when I’m teaching and I see female students, I see the importance of having a role model, and I take this very seriously.”

Now 33, Aldana has just released her Blue Note debut album as bandleader. The first part of her career has been one of survival, proving herself as an artist, and now in this album, 12 Stars, she is in reflective mode; touching on themes of childrearing, family forgiveness and, most poignantly, healing.

“During COVID I got divorced and the added isolation of lockdown started a crisis of self questioning and reflection on my life. I started having dreams about a child, my child…her name was Emilia, I was trying to make her go to sleep with a lullaby. And then, when I woke up I remembered the melody and wrote it down.”

‘Emilia’ is the fourth track on an album full of self-reflection. Perhaps the dream about having a baby, I suggest, is to do with reflecting on yourself as a child.

Melissa agrees, “I am starting to think that a lot of the reasons that things collapsed in my marriage are because of unresolved issues to do with my childhood.”

The album title is named after the 12 stars on the crown of The Empress, the 3rd major arcana Tarot card, Melissa adds. “It also refers to my 12 years in New York, 12 months in isolation during the pandemic, growing as an adult and growing as a musician.” 

The opening track ‘Falling’ marks the beginning of this cathartic process, inspired by the Tarot Tower, which in Tarot reading represents being perched on the top of a rocky mountain; when lightning strikes, chaos and destruction follow, causing a sudden awakening.

“That is why I connected with the Tarot Tower, because it marks a moment in life when you realise that all your patterns and triggers come from your parents and how they affect everything in your life.”

I make known at this point my skepticism of Tarot readings.

“I don’t believe in the card readings either,” she laughs. “Its more about the therapeutic aspects of this ancient culture. For centuries people have used it for psychological insight and creative inspiration. I guess it helped me find a way to acknowledge things about myself and come to terms with my family, the way I grew up.’

These 12 years in New York, surrounded by plenty of Latin Americans, has also helped Melissa, "accept my identity as a Latin American."

She amplifies: "Being in New York has reconnected me to a way I grew up. I am slowly exploring my identity.”

This sense of re-connection with Chile is reflected in the song Ojos de Chile, which is dedicated to the many protesters in Santiago who lost their eye sight during the riots that erupted in 2019, due to the over-zealous use of rubber bullets and tear gas by police.

“I felt saddened but also so proud to see millions of people speaking up, going into the streets to fight for their rights,” Melissa says. "A bunch of us Chilean musicians in New York (including bassist Pablo Menares) played a concert for an organisation called Ojos de Chile to raise money for those people.”

As a result of the process the riots triggered, Chile now has a new young radical president, Gabriel Boric, who has Melissa, along with many young Chileans, daring to hope for a better future. “He is providing a lot of hope for the country.”

Like Chile, Melissa Aldana, is also searching. But '12 Stars' also, it seems, represents the beginning of a return, after years of running, to confront her fears. And if Melissa’s search is inexorably connected to and expressed through music, we will be in store for some great jazz for many years to come.

Melissa Aldana will be playing the A Love Supreme Festival 01-03 July www.lovesupremefestival.com