12 Stars

*12 Stars*, the sixth album from formidable tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana, is her first for Blue Note. It’s also the first to document a fruitful collaboration with Norwegian-born guitarist Lage Lund, who produced *12 Stars* and cowrote the entire album with Aldana. The music is deeply informed by the harmonies and textures of Lund’s guitar and “gizmos,” at times sonically reminiscent of his 2019 album, *Terrible Animals*. Aldana, however, is the virtuosic focal point of *12 Stars* as she mixes it up with a band featuring Lund with mainstay bassist and fellow Chilean Pablo Menares, pianist Sullivan Fortner, and drummer Kush Abadey. (The cover art, like that of *Visions*, is by the acclaimed vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant.) Complex unison parts, bristling tempos and transitions, rich tone colors, smoking solos, and an utterly bewitching ballad for a closing track—it’s work befitting one of the leading jazz artists of our time.

Melissa Aldana's nuanced and superbly executed 2022 album 12 Stars feels like a new beginning for the tenor saxophonist.