Jazz Articles about Benjamin Lapidus

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Bobby Sanabria: Arsenio and Beyond

by Jack Bowers
June 9, 2026

Much of the music on Arsenio and Beyond was written by the trailblazing Cuban composer Arsenio Rodriguez, a master of the mandolin-like Cuban tres guitar who is credited among other innovations with creating the musical design that became known as son montuno. Rodriguez, drummer and bandleader Bobby Sanabria writes, was “the true Father of Mambo and Son Montuno," without whom “there is no salsa, Afro-Cuban jazz, or, many would even argue, rock or funk." Sanabria and his Multiverse ...

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Tal Farlow, Herbie Hancock, Hazel Scott & Benjamin Lapidus

by Joe Dimino
June 25, 2023

We begin the 808th Episode of Neon Jazz with the title track off guitarist Benjamin Lapidus's 2023 album Blues for Ochún. From there, we hear from the legendary Herbie Hancock who Lapidus saw at his first concert. As the show moves forward, we hone in on the female voices in jazz here in 2023 with Jan Cronin, Imogen Moon and Laila Biali. Drummer Kenneth Watson, Jr. is making waves in Kansas City and we have a tune with him sitting ...

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Benjamin Lapidus: Herencia Judia

by Michael P. Gladstone
June 20, 2008

Benjamin Lapidus is a 36 year-old musician, born in Hershey, Pennsylvania, who spent a childhood resettling some fifteen times before returning to New York at age 14. His cultural Jewish upbringing and family residence in Latin neighborhoods of New York fused these two musical cultures and Herencia Judia is a serious and most ambitious effort that legitimizes the combination.

Lapidus' expertise is featured on the tres, a small three string Spanish guitar. The basis of this album arose ...

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Benjamin Lapidus: Herencia Judia

by Eyal Hareuveni
March 6, 2008

Latin music scholar and Cuban tres master Benjamin Lapidus expands the definition of the new breed of Latin-Jewish music on his new solo disc, Herencia Judia. Lapidus has worked in the past with renowned free jazz masters such as Steve Lacy and Joe McPhee, and took part in other Jewish music projects such as the recent La Mar Enfortuna's Convivencia (Tzadik, 2007) or the collaboration of percussionist Roberto Juan Rodriguez with Algerian pianist Maurice El Medioni, Descarga Oriental (Piranha, 2006). ...