Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio

“It's not too soon to call her great….Melissa Aldana is brilliant, talented, skilled, innovative and a delight as a person and a performer….She owns the future.”—JazzTimes

Rising 25-year-old sax star Melissa Aldana really caught the jazz world’s attention when she won the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition in 2013. (Aldana is the first woman to capture the instrumental category in the contest’s 27-year history.) Well-schooled by her father Marcos Aldana, Aldana’s early jump from alto to tenor sax happened when she first heard Sonny Rollins, who continues to be an inspiration for her virtuosic post-bop trio. For Crash Trio she has enlisted fellow Chilean Pablo Menares on bass and the astonishing, Cuban-born drummer Francisco Mela to support her meteoric sonic flights. Already considered an old soul for her clear command, tone, and articulation on her horn, Aldana offers her own compositions in their sets, many with Latin touches, as well as classics that she makes her own. To call Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio exciting is a drastic understatement—don’t miss them when they light up the best room for jazz in town.