When I finished my first listen of the brilliant saxophone player Melissa Aldana’s new album Echoes of the Inner Prophet, something told me to go back and listen to her previous album, 12 Stars. That album is what got me into her music and I hadn’t listened to it in a little while. When I put the record on, it was the answer to my question “What do I think and how do I feel about this new Melissa Aldana record?”.
It’s a difficult album and it threw me off at first listen (as only a very good album can). Why was that? After all, it sounded like Aldana. It was jazz, experimental, improvisational, lush – but I did recognize it to be very moody. As Aldana herself states in the liner notes, there’s a lot of self-reflecting and trusting one’s instincts that went on in the creation of this album and that comes across from the very first track.
So I was a little confused when the album finished as to why I felt confused.
Then 12 Stars starts playing.
As it turns out, 12 Stars and Echoes of the Inner Prophet are very much inseparable records. Night and day, yin and yang, juxtapositions. If this new album finds Melissa in a more quiet, introspective state one can trust that 12 Stars was chaos coming out. There is juxtaposition in even the album covers, which is perhaps the best way to describe how different the mood of the music is. Take a look and I won’t need to explain it further:
If 12 Stars was confident in its controlled chaos, Echoes… finds Melissa confident in her self and her being, and the music enhances that feeling. There are as many instances of the sound of things falling apart as some almost bossa-nova-like warmth throughout the record. It is, to my ears, a way of expressing that one is at peace with life, even at peace with its chaos because all things must and will pass. Things fall apart. Things get rebuilt. People fall apart. People rebuild. The good and the bad: These are all treated equally and with respect on this album.
It’s hard to describe this convincingly because of the instrumental nature of the music. On 12 Stars, she walked us through the meaning of the songs in the liner notes. Here, the liner notes give us an overview of the album’s philosophy but not to the songs specifically and so I might be completely wrong. However, I trust my gut feeling that there is a way for Aldana of making peace through the music and of exploring questions that lurk which may never have an answer. It’s an immense achievement and an album that takes you through many twists and turns and asks you to revisit it in order to untangle it, if that be your will.
One must also, and equally, applaud her band:
Lage Lund – Guitar and Special Effects
Pablo Menares – Bass
Kush Abadey – Drums
Fabian Almazan – Acoustic Piano and Effects
The band sounds like such a tight unit that there too Aldana has the (and this is the keyword it seems) confidence to often step back and let the musicians take over. There is less playing from Aldana but a generous emphasis on overall sound texture (credit to Lund for arranging these tunes). No ego of a specific musician trying to show off. Just a band expressing itself as a unit through Melissa’s songs. Lastly, what an amazing job done by James Farber who recorded this album. I’m a vinyl geek, so I ordered the LP through Blue Note records’ website and put it loud in my headphones and it just felt like I was there, in the room with the musicians.
Last thing I should say: while it’s true that I play music, I have absolutely no knowledge of music theory. I don’t know how to read/write music. And so my love for jazz is purely out of the emotion I get from it. I say this because I know a lot of people might be intimidated by the nature of jazz music and might not know where to start. A lot of Jazz music can be (incorrectly) seen as Music For And By Musicians. I’ll tell you, whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter. If reading this strikes up your curiosity, put it on and observe how you feel about it. I was 16 when one late night walking back home I first listened to Sketches Of Spain, and if someone would have tried to describe the music to me it’s very likely I would have passed and put on a Pantera record. But it completely changed me and to this day it’s my favorite album of all-time. Can’t really tell you why, though.
I’ll usually post a single of the album at the end of a review, but I won’t: I really feel like the album works as a whole, and I say this in a positive way.
So check it out!
Buy it here: https://store.bluenote.com/products/melissa-aldana-echoes-of-the-inner-prophet
Listen here: https://melissaaldana.lnk.to/EchoesOfTheInnerProphet
Them Blue Midnights 