2022 · Album
12 Stars
Recorded 2021 · Motéma Music · Produced by Melissa Aldana, Motéma Musical Productions
Sullivan Fortner's Architecture at the Heart of Stars
Fortner's piano doesn't accompany Aldana—it shapes the space she occupies, frames her choices.
What makes 12 Stars (2022) distinct is Sullivan Fortner's role as something between pianist and co-architect. Aldana's tenor sax has clarity and fire, but Fortner's comping is unusually deliberate—he's not filling gaps, he's building walls and doorways for her to move through. On ballad passages, his voicings leave air; on faster heads, he locks into the groove with Kush Abadey and Pablo Menares in ways that feel conversational rather than hierarchical. This is not a standard piano-trio-plus-horns setup. Fortner plays almost like a second frontline voice, responding to Aldana's phrases rather than underpinning them.
The band coheres around this principle throughout. Lage Lund's effects work sits at the margins—subtle texture rather than spectacle—while Menares and Abadey anchor things with rock-solid time. Aldana's own writing dominates the session, and what's notable is how much space she leaves for this particular piano player to inhabit. These aren't arrangements that flatten the sidemen into service. Each musician occupies a distinct altitude in the mix.
This is mid-career work from Aldana—confident, unrushed. She's no longer proving herself, and the album doesn't strain for statement. If you know her earlier records, you'll recognize the directness, but the interplay here feels more settled, more mutual. Not a masterpiece, exactly, but a working band that sounds like it trusts itself.
Who's playing
Pablo Menaresdouble bass
Sullivan Fortnerpiano
Melissa Aldanatenor saxophone
Kush Abadeydrums
Lage Lundeffects
Where next?
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
