Home » Jazz Musicians » Benjamin Shorstein
Benjamin Shorstein
Benjamin Shorstein is a drummer, composer, and producer whose work bridges the gap between structured composition and improvisation. As the leader of Madre Vaca, Shorstein has established himself as a distinct voice in the contemporary jazz and avant-garde landscape, curating a catalog that emphasizes artistic risk and sonic fidelity.
Based in Jacksonville, Florida, Shorstein’s approach to the drum set is textural and conversational, favoring dialogue and dynamics over traditional timekeeping. His work is defined by a deep, often subversive engagement with history—reimagining classical forms and masterworks, Arthurian legend, and ancient mythology through a modern, improvisational lens.
Tags
Madre Vaca: Knights of the Round Table
by Jack Bowers
The legend of King Arthur and Camelot is depicted musically on Knights of the Round Table, the sixth album by the Florida-based eleven-member ensemble, Madre Vaca, whose themes are composed by drummer Benjamin Shorstein. While Knights is presented as a ten-part suite, there seems to be no connecting tissue aside from the names of individual works --"Arthur," “Camelot," “Galahad," “Merlin," “Guinevere" and “Lancelot" among them. True, there seems to be an over-all medieval vibe underlining Shorstein's music, ...
Continue ReadingMadre Vaca: The Elements
by Jack Bowers
Ambitious? How about depicting musically four basic elements--fire, water, earth, wind--and doing so with only four musicians. On its fourth recording, The Elements, the guitar-led quartet Madre Vaca endeavors to do exactly that, and in roughly forty-one minutes. Each of the album's four selections was written by a member of the group: “Fire" by drummer Benjamin Shorstein; “Water" by guitarist Jarrett Carter; “Earth" by bassist Thomas Milovac; “Wind" by pianist Jonah Pierre. So how do they fare? ...
Continue ReadingMadre Vaca: Winterreise
by Jack Bowers
For its third recording, the Florida-based jazz octet Madre Vaca has chosen to perform music by Franz Schubert—hold it; stop right there! Music by who? Yes, that's what it says—music by none other than Franz Schubert (1797-1828), an Austrian composer of what we know as classical music who in his brief lifetime wrote more than 600 secular vocal works, seven complete symphonies (and the well-known “Unfinished"), as well as sacred chorales, operas, and chamber, piano and incidental music. When did ...
Continue Reading"Benjamin Shorstein has created the best kind of jazz-meets-the-classics merger, the two worlds intermingling rather than crashing up against each other."
-Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune
On Shorstein's composition, Partita for Solo Violin: “Elegantly conceived, with clear ideas, a certain welcome lyricism and clarity of form and intent… a serious achievement”
-David Katz
