DESCRIPTION:
Melissa Aldana is using the Rhino Ligature Evo HD, Large. This particular model allows you to use it in both Hard Rubber and metal mouthpieces "Bari Sax" and also the two Hard Rubber and metal mouthpieces "Tenor sax" and the Hard Rubber Alto sax. so you have an approx. 5 in one ligature. It has a strong design built for 100% high quality brass. You can vary the sounds of bright to dark and adjust the pressure of the reed to your liking. It also increases the PROJECTION or volume of your sound. It is the ligature that has fewer points of contact allowing more freedom to the reed and the mouthpiece.

Visit us at www.rhinoligature.com

and to now more about Melissa Aldana go to www.melissaaldana.com

Bio.
Jazz saxophonist Melissa Aldana is set to release her first record for Concord Music Group on June 17, 2014. (International release dates may vary) The self-titled album Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio is the first recording of the three band mates together - Aldana, bassist Pablo Menares and drummer Francisco Mela. Recorded at Sear Sound Recording Studio in New York, the album consists of originals written by all three band members and includes two covers - the Harry Warren classic "You're My Everything" and Thelonious Monk's "Ask Me Now."




Speaking on this new album Aldana says, "Pablo Menares & Francisco Mela both help bring a unique perspective to playing in the saxophone trio format. Our approach is very much coming from the core of the Jazz Tradition, not least from contemporary musicians such as Kurt Rosenwinkel & Mark Turner, but with Mela being from Cuba and Pablo and I both from Chile, there is no question there is a flavor of that as well."




In September 2013, Melissa became the first female instrumentalist and first South American ever to win the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition. Judges for the competition included Jane Ira Bloom, Branford Marsalis, Jimmy Heath, Wayne Shorter and Bobby Watson. In addition to a scholarship to the Monk Institute, Melissa won a recording contract with Concord Music Group.




Born in 1988, Aldana began to play the saxophone as soon as she was able. She was taught by her father Marcos Aldana, who was also a renowned jazz saxophonist and sought out teacher in their hometown of Santiago, Chile. By age 13, Melissa was frequenting the jazz clubs in Santiago with her father and by 16 was headlining the Club de Jazz de Santiago, which, at the time, was the center of the Chilean jazz community. In 2005, with help from Panamanian jazz pianist Danilo Pérez, she procured auditions at the Berklee School of Music and the New England Conservatory. She was accepted into both and chose to attend Berklee, from which she graduated in 2009.




After graduating, Melissa immediately moved to New York. With the help of mentor, the legendary George Coleman, and former teacher Greg Osby, among many others, Melissa recorded two albums Free Fall (2010) and Second Cycle (2012) for Osby's Inner Circle Music label, and quickly became a vital part of the New York jazz scene. She has since performed in such prestigious venues as the Blue Note, Lincoln Center and Smalls. After a 2013 performance at the Jazz Gallery, The New York Times touted, "...she moved toward a kind of music (including 'First Cycle,' from her new record) that really felt like the current moment in jazz...Ms. Aldana worked over short motifs, using the full range of her instrument, articulating long and fast lines. But she also condensed her phrases into great wipes of sound up and down the horn, and clamped into the rhythm...She wasn't just exhibiting her own voice but embodying it..."