Jazz Articles about Lakecia Benjamin

New Year, New Releases, Part 2 -- Review of 2023 Recordings & More

by Mary Foster Conklin
January 15, 2024

The first broadcast of 2024 includes new releases from Mark Winkler plus a single from Rachel Z, Part 2 of my favorite recordings of 2023 with birthday shoutouts to Naama Gheber, Myra Melford, Carol Sudhalter, Georgia Mancio, Christine Tobin, Susannah McCorkle and Rachel Z, among others. Thanks for listening and please support the artists you hear by seeing them live and online. Purchase their music so they can continue to distract, comfort, provoke and inspire.Playlist Lakecia Benjamin “Jubilation" ...

Lakecia Benjamin: Phoenix

by Angelo Leonardi
November 20, 2023

A dodici anni dal debutto funk di Retox e dopo il sentito omaggio a John e Alice Coltrane di tre anni fa (Pursuance: The Coltranes) la sassofonista newyorchese realizza il disco della prima maturità, dimostrando di saper padroneggiare le molte influenze assimilate dall'infanzia. Influenze che partono dalla musica latina che ascoltava nel quartiere di Washington Heights e attraversano la Black Music nella sua interezza, da Sly Stone, James Brown, Charlie Parker e i boppers fino a John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter ...

Lakecia Benjamin: Phoenix

by Jerome Wilson
February 28, 2023

The previous album by saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin, Pursuance: The Coltranes, (Ropeadope, 2020) was a multifaceted tribute to the music of both John Coltrane and Alice Coltrane. Her new album takes on societal and human issues with similar diversity but in a more compact and organized manner. It moves from a socially aware mix of soul, R'n'B, and jazz fusion in its first half to full-blown spiritual jazz in its second. The album begins with the sound of sirens ...

Lakecia Benjamin: Phoenix

by Mike Jurkovic
January 7, 2023

True to her nature, saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin keeps the flame to the dynamite on her smoking follow-up to the wildfire of Pursuance (Ropeadope, 2020), her still hot-to-the-touch dedication to the music and spirituality of John Coltrane and Alice Coltrane. Co-produced with maximum female power by Benjamin and Terri Lyne Carrington, the torrential riptide “Amerikkan Skin" ambushes one's consciousness via the urgency of police sirens only to give way to the equally urgent dictum of radical thinker, activist, educator ...

Somi: Zenzile: The Reimagination Of Miriam Makeba

by Angelo Leonardi
March 21, 2022

Il legame musicale e simbolico con l'Africa resta centrale nella produzione artistica di Somi, la vocalist e cantautrice statunitense dai genitori africani giunta al successo con gli album The Lagos Music Saloon e Holy Room. Il suo nuovo progetto è dedicato a Miriam Makeba, che avrebbe compiuto 90 anni il 4 marzo, data di pubblicazione del presente album. I brani in scaletta, tutti presi dallo storico repertorio della cantante, sono condivisi col musical Dreaming Zenzile, che Somi ...

The Tenth Annual John Coltrane international Jazz & Blues Festival

by La-Faithia White
November 13, 2021

Lakecia Benjamin: Pursuance: The Coltranes

by Jerome Wilson
May 22, 2020

Over the years, there have been many recorded tributes to John Coltrane but saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin takes the concept farther by paying homage to the work of both John and his wife, Alice Coltrane. Benjamin plays their compositions in a wide range of settings with a large cast of musicians, including a couple who actually worked with one or both of the Coltranes. There are treatments here that hew close to the spiritual and mystical force of the ...