Alto saxophonist, MC, and bandleader Lakecia Benjamin has had a most dreamlike past twelve months. She kicked on the Main Stage on Friday at the 2023 Newport Jazz Festival to a raving audience at 1 PM in the afternoon, no less. She’s been on tour constantly across the U.S. and Europe, including many prestigious festivals. She received three Grammy nominations for her 2023 Phoenix as well as an NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Jazz Album.
She was the artist-in-residence at SF Jazz and at the 2023 Monterey Jazz Festival and was on the front line for the International Jazz Day broadcast from Tangiers, Morocco, and more recently, a week-long stint on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, sitting in with The Late Show band. This new effort, her first-ever live studio album Phoenix Reimagined (Live) via Ropeadope, was first announced on Colbert’s show. That too, might be a first for a jazz musician.
Benjamin is a force of nature’s life, roaming the stage like Mick Jagger while blowing her horn, sometimes moving into a crouching or kneeling position to accentuate the power of her improvisations. She engages the audience like the MC she is, often with messages of spiritual uplift and social justice, never losing sight of making sure the audience has a good time in the process. She connects in a way that few jazz musicians do, heard in her opening “Intro” to those fortunate enough to attend the session. (The only time we hear the audience on the recording). Benjamin invited as many people as she could to one of the most decorated shrines in modern-day jazz, The Bunker in Brooklyn. She blazes with her road-tested band of pianist Zaccai Curtis, bassist Elias Bailey, and drummer E.J. Strickland, beginning with an ode to her favorite artist, John Coltrane, with her own vibrato, thrill-filled, volcanic “Trane.” Benjamin is the rare alto saxophonist — along with Kenny Garrett and her mentor Gary Bartz (and we now add Sarah Hanahan) — who carries the fire and spirituality of John Coltrane. She proved this in her 2020 Pursuance — her tribute to John and Alice Coltrane, which we covered on these pages.
The overflowing audience crowd was fortunate to witness elite guests record the title track: guitarist John Scofield, trumpeter Randy Brecker, and drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts. Benjamin leads the charge, followed by a nimble Scofield, blistering Brecker, and a churning Watts. She shifts the cast again for her spoken word-enhanced new tune, “Let Go,” indicative of her work with her other band, Benjamin’s Soul Squad. These contributors are bassist Richie Goods, pianist Ray Angry, and vocalist Melodie Ray, who duets with Benjamin, and guitarist Kat Dyson, weighing in with a Santana-like solo. This same cast renders the R&B-influenced, groove-heavy “Mercy,” featuring the soaring vocals of Ray.
Benjamin turns a unifying rapper on the intro of “American Skin” before launching her reaching alto on the jagged, spiritually tinged tune, one of the prime cuts on the studio album. The new “Peace Is Possible” seamlessly follows, imbued by Curtis’ piano intro that sets the stage for Benjamin again as MC, blending Black poetry and hip-hop. Her flowing “New Mornings” follows, a feature for Curtis’ McCoy Tyner-like pianism, inevitably setting up the Coltrane staple, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “My Favorite Things.” Her own equally aggressive, presumably the encore “Spirit,” which rather unexpectedly ends with a couple of quiet chords from Curtis.
As you’d guess, Lakecia and her main band bring robust vitality such that the album is overflowing with energy, tempered with some variety through the guest spots. My quibble is with the lack of audience audible beyond just the opening “Intro” and the abrupt editing of some tracks. Corrections there would have added even more heat to this boiling date.
