Lakecia Benjamin: We Dream

Lakecia Benjamin is clearly pulling no punches on We Dream. Not that she ever has, given a discography that includes 2020's Pursuance: The Coltranes (Ropeadope Records); 2012's intoxicating, groove-crazy Retox (Motema) or the spellbinding sister releases Phoenix (Whirlwind, 2023) and the super stoked Phoenix ReImagined (Live) (Ropeadope Records, 2024). We Dream drops the mic and leaves the rest up to the listener: What are you going to do to make the world a better place today?

Excitable and fire-breathing, Benjamin not only lets her horn prove her propers, but she also raises her voice primally, with the power of the lioness, to slash away the armor of somnambulance we have wrapped ourselves comfortably in and kicks in to the kick-ass poem "First Light." A statement-of-purpose opening statement featuring the rakish young pioneer and her equally pioneering peers, drummer Jonathan Barber, trumpeter Sean Jones, bassist Elias Bailey, and pianists Oscar Pérez and Miki Hayama.  

It is a surely dizzying moment, succeeded wantonly by the classic quarter styled "Beyond the Dream," a very now styled throwback to John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones getting down in Hackensack, 1964 with Rudy Van Gelder getting it all down on tape. Oh, and by the way, Terrence Blanchard goes one-on-one with the leader. Jones gets his Roy Hargrove-like chill on the R&B /jazz trailblazer, "My Only."

Still, Benjamin never lets up on the petrol, bringing in Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah for a smooth call and response breakaway car chase of a track, "Mi Gente." "Ascension," with its incessant bass throb and Benjamin's keening vocal, "trying to remember the shape of peace," leads the way into a performance so vibrant it is hard to imagine how the whole thing remains tied to terra firma. Subsequently, the saxophonist's avowed avengers—Jones, sax-master Chris Potter and drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts himself—take down whatever walls remain on the combustible, hot-house frolic "DreamBreaker."

Hiromi, as suspected and most hoped for, brings her own subversive state of frenzy to that question posed in paragraph one, teaming with Potter to light the fuse of "Flamekeeper."  a buzz-bomb roll of the dice that Hiromi blows into full blown Sonicwonder mode until Benjamin, Potter, and company bring in the trad and bring on the blues with "Himori Jam," a sweet, swaggering swing impossible not to sway to.

Even if she was not a full fledged girl from Washington Heights, NY, hip-hop naturally and most organically spills onto Benjamin's grand blueprint for the music both here and ahead, and "We Dream" (featuring Tarriona "Tank" Ball) and "Right Now" (featuring Bilal and Kassa Overall) serve as beacons.  "New World," a surprisingly quiet, resolute closer, returns us once again to the nagging question of what are we going to do today to make the world a better place after hearing the daring action, urgency, and advocacy of We Dream.