Melissa Aldana wrote “Frida” for the all-female group Artemis, celebrating Mexican revolutionary painter Frida Kahlo and “her process of finding her own identity through art”.
That’s exactly what Melissa Aldana did: in 2013, the Chilean tenor saxophone player won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition at the age of 24. She was the first female musician and the first South American person to win this prestigious award.
Her father and grandfather were musicians. Aldana began with alto but switched to tenor upon first hearing the music of Sonny Rollins. She attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston after being discovered by Danilo Pérez. Her debut as a leader was in 2022 for Blue Note Records. She also released the recent album “Echoes of the Inner Prophet” (Blue Note). She was nominated twice at the Grammys for Best Improvised Jazz Solo for “Falling” and “Elsewhere”. Critic Nate Chinen wrote that Aldana “has the elusive ability to balance technical achievement against a rich emotional palette.”
