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In Memoriam: Al Foster, 1943–2025
Al Foster, a drummer regarded for his fluency across the bebop, post-bop and funk/fusion lineages of jazz, died May 28…
“All those female voices are choirs of women coming to heal the world from the imbalance of the masculine and feminine,” Meza says of her new album, Portal.
(Photo: Fran Navarro)Camila Meza has been on a journey of self-discovery since the multifaceted vocalist, guitarist and composer first emerged from her hometown of Santiago, Chile, and migrated to New York to study at the New School of Jazz, where she quickly became a recognized force. Six years after the release of her critically acclaimed Ambar (Sony Masterworks), she returns with Portal (GroundUP Music), her first all-originals album and, by far, her most personal project to date.
“What is interesting is that I didn’t name the album Portal because of this personal transformation,” she said from her second home in Guatemala, near Lake Atitlán. “I actually wrote most of this music in 2019 to fulfill a Jazz Gallery Commission, and composed it in kind of a trance. But a lot of these songs really made sense three, four, five years later. So it was a very prophetic album.”
By the time Meza actually started recording during the pandemic, compositions celebrating women and female archetypes blossomed in the studio when she became pregnant and gave birth to her son. Throughout that time, she worked out of a DIY home studio that she continued to use while the baby was sleeping, then joined forces with her keyboardist and co-producer Shai Maestro to enhance the tracks in a professional studio.
Featuring drummer Ofri Nehemya and harpist Margaret Davis, Portal boasts a panoply of special guests: vocalists Gretchen Parlato and Becca Stevens; drummer Caleb Van Gelder; pianist Gadi Lehavi; and the Mapuche artist and poet Faumelisa Manquepillán, who recites a poem in her south Chilean indigenous language.
But Meza herself is the sun around which the other planets revolve, helping her tell a story from deep inside her soul that is both intimately personal and sweepingly universal. During the following conversion, edited for length and clarity, she discussed what that means to her.
Cree McCree: This is a very personal album about what it means to be a woman, and on the pensive opening track, “Utopia,” you sing, “I breathe slow.” Do you practice meditation?
Camila Meza: Yes, meditative breathing and yoga. I feel like yoga has actually saved my life. It really anchors me and gives me the renewal I need to keep going in this chaotic world.
McCree: What was it like recording the album in your own home studio?
Meza: It was really fun and totally different from everything that I’ve done before. On all my previous albums, everybody went to the studio and played at the same time, and in two days you have an album. This process took literally years, because every layer was worked on through time.
McCree: You co-produced it with Shai Maestro?
Meza: Yes, and he really is a maestro. I sent him demos and recordings of the songs, a live recording from the Jazz Gallery and some arrangements. But Shai enhanced my vision. He would send me ideas and I’d be like, “Oh, my God, that part with the synth here, it’s amazing.” We’d go back and forth with constant feedback.
McCree: He really enhanced the vocals and also your guitar. Was guitar your first instrument?
Meza: Well, I always sang. It was so natural that I didn’t consider myself a singer until way later. It was just something that I did. There were acoustic guitars at home, and my mom put us into folklore guitar lessons. Then, when I was 15 years old, I asked for an electric guitar and got it for Christmas. And that changed my life, because of the possibilities of that instrument.
McCree: You are very fluent in English and sing in both English and Spanish. How do you decide which language you want to use?
Meza: It’s usually a very natural decision. Some syllables work better in certain grooves, depending on whether it’s English or Spanish. That said, this album has a couple of instances where I surprised myself. Like in “Portal,” which actually has a line of Spanish in it. In the process of creation, suddenly this melody came out and I was singing it in Spanish, and I was like, oh, hold on. I can actually do this. I don’t have to choose all the time.
McCree: On the track “Nieno La,” the Mapuche poet Faumelisa Manquepillán recites a poem in her indigenous language. What drew you to her work?
Meza: When I was writing these songs, I was urgently trying to find a harmonious resolution to all the negativity in the world, and the archetype of a wise woman came to me in a dream. I had this very incidental piece of music that was meant to bring that sense of entering a different realm, and went looking for poetry to embody that spirit. I found Faumelisa online and fell in love with her work, and she recorded that track in the south of Chile and sent it to me. Every time I hear it, I get goosebumps because I feel like we’re reconnecting with that wise woman spirit we need right now.
McCree: This is your first all-originals album. Do you want to do more in the future?
Meza: Definitely. I spent many years not allowing myself to write, because I would judge everything I wrote and not feel confident about it. My last two albums have had a lot of my own material, but it’s been a slow process. So for me to say this is my new album and it’s all my personal songs is a pretty big deal.
McCree: The album is being released when women and the work they do is under assault in America. Can Portal help women live through these unsettling times?
Meza: It definitely has that energy behind it. All those female voices are choirs of women coming to heal the world from the imbalance of the masculine and feminine. “Harvesting Under The Moon,” with the moon being representative of feminine energy that fluctuates, also talks about revisiting history so we can bring love to the world instead of war and destruction.
McCree: What would you most like people to take away from listening to Portal?
Meza: That we have so much power as individuals and collectively to create harmony and beauty. I truly believe we can fulfill those utopian scenarios and transmute the negativity that is so present right now into something beautiful and harmonious. And if this music can help you go through that process when you listen to it, then I will have accomplished something. DB
Foster was truly a drummer to the stars, including Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and Joe Henderson.
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