MILENA CASADO - Reflection Of Another Self

Milena Casado's afro hairstyle is a tool for asserting her own identity (“This Is My Hair”). Even before the music starts. Bold from the very first track: “O. C. T. (Oda to Crazy Times)” is a funk-jazz crossover that blends Miles Davis, Steve Coleman and Erykah Badu into a sharp, assertive sound. Milena Casado has released one of the year's best debuts.

The Spanish trumpeter based in New York studied at Berklee College Of Music under two sacred monsters of the instrument, Terri Lyne Carrington and Jack DeJohnette. The former went on to produce her debut album “Reflection Of Another Self”. A kaleidoscope of stellar fusion recorded with three young musicians – American pianist Lex Korten, Japanese bassist Kanoa Mendenhall and South Korean drummer Jongkuk Kim – assisted by a roster of illustrious guests including multi-instrumentalist Morgan Guerin, harpist Brandee Younger, flautist Nicole Mitchell, pianist Kris Davis and the divine MeShell Ndegeocello.

The album unfolds across thirteen tracks, five of which are fragments lasting a minute or so, where synth beds create languid settings for more organic, muscular improvisations. The instrumental timbres are recorded to emerge forcefully from the grooves suggested by the atmospheres, as on "Circles", enriched by the participation of Haitian multi-instrumentalist and producer Val Jeanty.

The duality of the album's title is well expressed across the two short pieces "Introspection I – I" and "Introspection II – Preguntas", bookends framing the elegant melancholy of "Lidia y los Libros", featuring Brandee Younger and Nicole Mitchell, and the languid romanticism of "Unconditional Love".

Of an entirely different nature is the third, "Introspection III – Courage", on which Terri Lyne Carrington herself plays, and the mood turns sharper and more crackling. Just in time for the album's grand finale: "Resilience" is a riot of sampled voices laid beneath the soloists' improvisations; "Circles (Retrospection)" is a fragment that glows with Kris Davis's piano; and "SELF LOVE" is a slow-funk ballad that would have made Prince fall instantly in love.

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27/08/2025