{"id":803422,"date":"2020-01-24T08:52:14","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T15:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=941863"},"modified":"2020-01-24T08:52:14","modified_gmt":"2020-01-24T15:52:14","slug":"hear-a-grammy-nominated-jazz-saxophonist-cover-old-town-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/hear-a-grammy-nominated-jazz-saxophonist-cover-old-town-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Hear a Grammy-Nominated Jazz Saxophonist Cover \u2018Old Town Road\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/oldtownroadcover_thumb_.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p>\u201cOld Town Road\u201d was everywhere last year, but Melissa Aldana somehow managed to escape its grasp. The first time the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/jazz\/\" id=\"auto-tag_jazz\" data-tag=\"jazz\">jazz<\/a> saxophone star heard the song that dominated 2019 was earlier this week, when she learned how to play \u201cOld Town Road\u201d on the tenor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The Chilean-born, New York\u2013based Aldana is nominated for Best Improvised Jazz Solo at the 2020 Grammy Awards for her performance on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CYDFocD9AF0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">\u201cElsewhere,\u201d<\/a> a track off her quintet\u2019s 2019 album <em>Visions<\/em>. In honor of the upcoming Grammys, <em>Rolling Stone<\/em> invited Aldana \u2014 who won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition in 2013 and has studied with saxophone masters such as George Coleman and Joe Lovano \u2014 to perform a rendition of another nominated song: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/lil-nas-x\/\" id=\"auto-tag_lil-nas-x\" data-tag=\"lil-nas-x\">Lil Nas X<\/a> and Billy Ray Cyrus\u2019 instantly iconic ode to the cowboy life, up for Record of the Year, Best Pop Duo\/Group Performance, and Best Music Video at Sunday\u2019s awards.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s an incredible tune,\u201d Aldana tells <em>Rolling Stone<\/em> of \u201cOld Town Road.\u201d \u201cSuper catchy, super fun to listen to, has an amazing groove. So I think that\u2019s why we didn\u2019t have a hard time trying to figure out how to play it in a different context, because it\u2019s a really strong tune.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">For the performance, Aldana enlisted her own Billy Ray in bassist and frequent collaborator Pablo Menares, and the result is an unlikely but entirely natural jazz-country-trap mash-up. The pair starts with an exploratory intro before digging into the song\u2019s deep groove and instantly recognizable melody. There\u2019s not a hint of kitsch to the improvisation that ensues, as Aldana and Menares examine the theme from all sides and get lost in its easy-rolling flow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cThe performance felt great,\u201d Aldana says. \u201cI really had a lot of fun and I really feel like I was able to be myself within the context of music that I don\u2019t usually play.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She adds that she finds cross-genre covers \u201ctricky,\u201d but, she continues, \u201cat the same time I\u2019ve found in my experience right now, it\u2019s a nice challenge. Just to see how you can keep the message but still be yourself, and add your own input into the music.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/old-town-road-cover-jazz-melissa-aldana-941863\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cOld Town Road\u201d was everywhere last year, but Melissa Aldana somehow managed to escape its grasp. The first time the jazz saxophone star heard the song that dominated 2019 was earlier this week, when she learned how to play \u201cOld Town Road\u201d on the tenor. The Chilean-born, New York\u2013based Aldana is nominated for Best Improvised [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-803422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-24 18:58:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}