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Music review Melissa Aldana Quartet, Pizza Express Soho

Chilean tribute to Mexican icon

AT THIS gig, Chilean tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana, playing tunes dedicated to Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, is accompanied by Norwegian guitarist Lage Lund and an all-American rhythm section in drummer Kush Abadey and bassist Josh Ginsburg.

The drums and saxophone colloquy which opens the title number from Adana’s album Visions is unified by Abadey’s splattering, polyrhythmic drums  and Aldana’s vertiginous Andean ascents and tumbling cadences.

Small in stature, she rises and bends with the forceful and buoyant sounds of her horn.

Lund’s fleet and fluid lucidity features in all his solo improvising, especially on his own tune Ray Ray from his new album Terrible Animals, in which his strings fizz with invention and Aldana’s empathetic solo matches his lyricism.

Ginsburg’s lifeline pulse throbs through every number and Abadey’s drums, rampant with an irrepressible swing, underpin the foundations of a quartet of startling and internationalist artistry.

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