Sathima Bea Benjamin
Encyclopedia
Sathima Bea Benjamin is a South African vocalist and composer born in Johannesburg, raised in Cape Town
, and now based in New York City.
, Billie Holiday
, Doris Day
, Ella Fitzgerald
. These musicians would come to influence her singing style, notably in terms of light phrasing and clear diction.
At the age of 21, she joined Arthur Klugman's traveling show, Coloured Jazz and Variety, on a tour of South Africa
. When the production failed, she found herself stranded in Mozambique where she met South African saxophonist Kippie Moeketsi
. In 1959, she returned to Cape Town's now thriving jazz scene, where she would meet pianist Dollar Brand(aka Abdullah Ibrahim
), whom she would later marry. In that same year she recorded what would have been the first jazz LP in South Africa's history. Titled My Songs for You, with accompaniment by Ibrahim’s trio, the recording of mostly standards was never released.
of 1960, Benjamin and Ibrahim left South Africa for Europe. The couple, along with Ibrahim's trio of bassist Johnny Gertze and drummer Makhaya Ntshoko, settled in Zurich
, Switzerland and worked throughout Germany and Scandinavia, meeting and occasional working with American jazz players, including Don Byas
, Dexter Gordon
, Kenny Drew
, Ben Webster
, Bud Powell
, John Coltrane
, and Thelonious Monk
. The artist who would have the greatest impact on Benjamin’s life, however, was Duke Ellington
.
’s Reprise
label, for whom Ellington ran A&R. Ibrahim’s record, Duke Ellington Presents The Dollar Brand Trio, was released the following year and subsequently helped him build a following in Europe and the United States. Benjamin’s recording, however, remained unreleased and presumed to be lost. (The lost date was finally put out in 1996 by Enja Records
, under the title A Morning in Paris, as the session's engineer, Gerhard Lerner, had made a second copy.) The album features Benjamin performing with Duke Ellington
, Billy Strayhorn
, and Abdullah performing piano on various tracks, with Johnny Gertze and Makhaya Ntshoko as bassist and drummer, respectively.
Benjamin maintained her musical relationship with Ellington. In 1965, Duke arranged to have her perform with his band in the U.S. at the Newport Jazz Festival
, and at one point asked her to join his band permanently. Due to her recent marriage to Ibrahim that same year, Benjamin declined the offer.
The year 1976 marked a turning point for Benjamin. She and Ibrahim returned to South Africa to live; she gave birth to her daughter, Tsidi (now the underground hip-hop artist Jean Grae
); and went recorded African Songbird, an album of original compositions, for South Africa's Gallo Records. Shortly after Tsidi's birth, the family relocated to New York city, to the famed Hotel Chelsea
.
In 1979, Benjamin launched her own record label, ekapa rpm, to produce, publish and distribute her and Ibrahim’s music. Between 1979 and 2002, she released eight of her own albums on ekapa: Sathima Sings Ellington, Dedications, Memories and Dreams, Windsong, Lovelight, Southern Touch, Cape Town Love, and Musical Echoes.
Each of these recordings received critical acclaim for Benjamin. Dedications was nominated for a Grammy in 1982. Benjamin's collaborators on these albums have included saxophonist Carlos Ward
, pianists Stephen Scott
, Kenny Barron
, Larry Willis
and Onaje Allan Gumbs
, bassist Buster Williams
and drummers Billy Higgins
and Ben Riley
.
For the most part, Benjamin has used American musicians for her U.S. recordings and South African musicians when in Cape Town. Her 2002 recording, Musical Echoes, featured American pianist Stephen Scott
with two South Africans, bassist Basil Moses and drummer Lulu Gontsana.
bestowed upon her the Order of Ikhamanga
Silver Award in recognition for her “excellent contribution as a jazz artist” in South Africa and internationally, as well as for her contribution “to the struggle against apartheid.” And in March 2005, the art group Pen and Brush, Inc. presented her with a Certificate of Achievement for her work as a performer, musician, composer, and “activist in the struggle for human rights in South Africa.” Benjamin is featured in the March 2006 issue of Jazztimes
.
Sathima Bea Benjamin’s most recent CD, SongSpirit, was released on October 17 in celebration of her 70th birthday. A compilation record, it includes tracks from her earlier albums, starting with A Morning In Paris and going through Musical Echoes, plus a previously unreleased duet with Abdullah Ibrahim from 1973.
In 2007, Benjamin began the process of reissuing her now out-of-print back catalogue for download. Cape Town Love, released June 19, began the process, while A Morning in Paris is scheduled next for reissue in October 2007 in preparation for her 71st birthday. It was released for download October 16, and will be reissued onto CD on January 22, 2008. Benjamin's compelling life was the subject of a 2010 documentary film titled "Sathima's Windsong," directed by author and professor, Daniel Yon.
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
, and now based in New York City.
Early life
As a youth, Sathima Bea Benjamin first performed popular music in talent contests at the local cinema (bioscope) during intermission. By the 1950s she was singing at various nightclubs, community dances and social events, performing with notable Cape Town pianists Tony Schilder and Henry February, amongst others. She built her repertoire watching British and American movies and transcribing lyrics from songs heard on the radio, where she discovered Nat King ColeNat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
, Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
, Doris Day
Doris Day
Doris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,...
, Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
. These musicians would come to influence her singing style, notably in terms of light phrasing and clear diction.
At the age of 21, she joined Arthur Klugman's traveling show, Coloured Jazz and Variety, on a tour of South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. When the production failed, she found herself stranded in Mozambique where she met South African saxophonist Kippie Moeketsi
Kippie Moeketsi
Kippie ‘Morolong’ Moeketsi was a South African saxophonist and jazz musician. Born into a musical Johannesburg family, Moeketsi was the youngest of eleven brothers, and one sister who was a nurse of whom all but 4 played an instrument...
. In 1959, she returned to Cape Town's now thriving jazz scene, where she would meet pianist Dollar Brand(aka Abdullah Ibrahim
Abdullah Ibrahim
Abdullah Ibrahim , born Adolph Johannes Brand, 9 October 1934 in Cape Town, South Africa, and formerly known as Dollar Brand, is a South African pianist and composer...
), whom she would later marry. In that same year she recorded what would have been the first jazz LP in South Africa's history. Titled My Songs for You, with accompaniment by Ibrahim’s trio, the recording of mostly standards was never released.
Sharpeville Massacre and Europe
In the aftermath of South Africa’s Sharpeville MassacreSharpeville massacre
The Sharpeville Massacre occurred on 21 March 1960, at the police station in the South African township of Sharpeville in the Transvaal . After a day of demonstrations, at which a crowd of black protesters far outnumbered the police, the South African police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69...
of 1960, Benjamin and Ibrahim left South Africa for Europe. The couple, along with Ibrahim's trio of bassist Johnny Gertze and drummer Makhaya Ntshoko, settled in Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
, Switzerland and worked throughout Germany and Scandinavia, meeting and occasional working with American jazz players, including Don Byas
Don Byas
Carlos Wesley "Don" Byas was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, long-resident in Europe.- Oklahoma and Los Angeles :...
, Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and an Academy Award-nominated actor . He is regarded as one of the first and most important musicians to adapt the bebop musical language of people like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell to the tenor saxophone...
, Kenny Drew
Kenny Drew
Kenneth Sidney "Kenny" Drew was an American jazz pianist.-Biography:Born in New York City, New York, he first recorded with Howard McGhee in 1949, and over the next two years recorded with Buddy DeFranco, Coleman Hawkins, Milt Jackson, Charlie Parker, Buddy Rich, and Dinah Washington...
, Ben Webster
Ben Webster
Benjamin Francis Webster , a.k.a. "The Brute" or "Frog," was an influential American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young...
, Bud Powell
Bud Powell
Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell was an American Jazz pianist. Powell has been described as one of "the two most significant pianists of the style of modern jazz that came to be known as bop", the other being his friend and contemporary Thelonious Monk...
, John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
, and Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
. The artist who would have the greatest impact on Benjamin’s life, however, was Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
.
Duke Ellington
Benjamin met Duke while he was in Zurich in 1963. Standing in the wings during most of his band’s performance, once the concert ended she insisted that Duke hear her husband’s trio at the Club Africana, where Ibrahim's band had a standing engagement. Duke obliged, but insisted that Benjamin sing for him. Following this encounter, Ellington arranged for the couple to fly to Paris and record separate albums for Frank SinatraFrank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
’s Reprise
Reprise Records
Reprise Records is an American record label, founded in 1960 by Frank Sinatra. It is owned by Warner Music Group, and operated through Warner Bros. Records.-Beginnings:...
label, for whom Ellington ran A&R. Ibrahim’s record, Duke Ellington Presents The Dollar Brand Trio, was released the following year and subsequently helped him build a following in Europe and the United States. Benjamin’s recording, however, remained unreleased and presumed to be lost. (The lost date was finally put out in 1996 by Enja Records
Enja Records
Enja Records is a German jazz record label based in Munich, Germany. It was founded by jazz enthusiasts Matthias Winckelmann and Horst Weber in 1971....
, under the title A Morning in Paris, as the session's engineer, Gerhard Lerner, had made a second copy.) The album features Benjamin performing with Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
, Billy Strayhorn
Billy Strayhorn
William Thomas "Billy" Strayhorn was an American composer, pianist and arranger, best known for his successful collaboration with bandleader and composer Duke Ellington lasting nearly three decades. His compositions include "Chelsea Bridge", "Take the "A" Train" and "Lush Life".-Early...
, and Abdullah performing piano on various tracks, with Johnny Gertze and Makhaya Ntshoko as bassist and drummer, respectively.
Benjamin maintained her musical relationship with Ellington. In 1965, Duke arranged to have her perform with his band in the U.S. at the Newport Jazz Festival
Newport Jazz Festival
The Newport Jazz Festival is a music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island, USA. It was established in 1954 by socialite Elaine Lorillard, who, together with husband Louis Lorillard, financed the festival for many years. The couple hired jazz impresario George Wein to organize the...
, and at one point asked her to join his band permanently. Due to her recent marriage to Ibrahim that same year, Benjamin declined the offer.
South Africa, America, and ekapa records
Throughout the 1960s Benjamin and Ibrahim moved back and forth between Europe and New York City, as Ibrahim worked to establish his career. Benjamin spent much of the period as a manager and agent for her husband whilst raising their son, Tsakwe.The year 1976 marked a turning point for Benjamin. She and Ibrahim returned to South Africa to live; she gave birth to her daughter, Tsidi (now the underground hip-hop artist Jean Grae
Jean Grae
Jean Grae , born November 26, 1976 is an American hip hop artist who hails from South Africa. She rose to prominence in the underground hip-hop scene in New York City, and has since built an international fanbase.- Early life :...
); and went recorded African Songbird, an album of original compositions, for South Africa's Gallo Records. Shortly after Tsidi's birth, the family relocated to New York city, to the famed Hotel Chelsea
Hotel Chelsea
The Hotel Chelsea, also known as the Chelsea Hotel, or simply the Chelsea, is a historic New York City hotel and landmark, known primarily for its history of notable residents...
.
In 1979, Benjamin launched her own record label, ekapa rpm, to produce, publish and distribute her and Ibrahim’s music. Between 1979 and 2002, she released eight of her own albums on ekapa: Sathima Sings Ellington, Dedications, Memories and Dreams, Windsong, Lovelight, Southern Touch, Cape Town Love, and Musical Echoes.
Each of these recordings received critical acclaim for Benjamin. Dedications was nominated for a Grammy in 1982. Benjamin's collaborators on these albums have included saxophonist Carlos Ward
Carlos Ward
Carlos Ward is a jazz alto saxophonist and flautist. He is best known as a sideman.His first instrument was the clarinet at age 13 when he lived in Seattle, Washington...
, pianists Stephen Scott
Stephen Scott
Stephen Scott is an American composer best known for his development of the bowed piano , which involves a grand piano being played by an ensemble of ten musicians who utilize lengths of horsehair, nylon filament, and other utensils to bow the strings of the piano, creating an orchestra-like...
, Kenny Barron
Kenny Barron
Kenny Barron , is an American jazz pianist. He is the younger brother of tenor saxophonist Bill Barron, and known for his lyrical, adaptive style.-Biography:...
, Larry Willis
Larry Willis
Lawrence Elliott Willis is an American jazz pianist and composer. He has performed in a wide range of styles, including jazz fusion rock music, Bebop and Avant-Garde...
and Onaje Allan Gumbs
Onaje Allan Gumbs
Onaje Allan Gumbs is a New York-based pianist, composer, and bandleader.-Early life:Born in Harlem, Onaje grew up in St. Albans, Queens, and started playing piano at age 7. Henry Mancini was one of his earliest and greatest influences from watching the TV shows "Peter Gunn" and "Mr Lucky" at age 8...
, bassist Buster Williams
Buster Williams
Charles Anthony Williams is an American jazz bassist.-Biography:Williams has gained prestige among jazz musicians as a solid supportive player. Since the early 1960s, he has made subtle swing, a precise rhythm and superb technique the landmark of his playing...
and drummers Billy Higgins
Billy Higgins
Billy Higgins was an American jazz drummer. He played mainly free jazz and hard bop.Higgins was born in Los Angeles, California. Higgins played on Ornette Coleman's first records, beginning in 1958...
and Ben Riley
Ben Riley
Ben Riley is an American hard bop drummer known for his work with Thelonious Monk, as well as Alice Coltrane, Stan Getz, Woody Herman, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Ahmad Jamal, Kenny Barron, and as member of the group Sphere...
.
For the most part, Benjamin has used American musicians for her U.S. recordings and South African musicians when in Cape Town. Her 2002 recording, Musical Echoes, featured American pianist Stephen Scott
Stephen Scott
Stephen Scott is an American composer best known for his development of the bowed piano , which involves a grand piano being played by an ensemble of ten musicians who utilize lengths of horsehair, nylon filament, and other utensils to bow the strings of the piano, creating an orchestra-like...
with two South Africans, bassist Basil Moses and drummer Lulu Gontsana.
Recent career
In October 2004, South African president Thabo MbekiThabo Mbeki
Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki is a South African politician who served two terms as the second post-apartheid President of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008. He is also the brother of Moeletsi Mbeki...
bestowed upon her the Order of Ikhamanga
Order of Ikhamanga
The Order of Ikhamanga is a South African honour. It was instituted on 30 November 2003 and is granted by the President of South Africa for achievements in arts, culture, literature, music, journalism, and sports...
Silver Award in recognition for her “excellent contribution as a jazz artist” in South Africa and internationally, as well as for her contribution “to the struggle against apartheid.” And in March 2005, the art group Pen and Brush, Inc. presented her with a Certificate of Achievement for her work as a performer, musician, composer, and “activist in the struggle for human rights in South Africa.” Benjamin is featured in the March 2006 issue of Jazztimes
JazzTimes
JazzTimes is a magazine that dates back to Radio Free Jazz, a publication founded in 1970 by Ira Sabin when he was operating a record store in Washington, DC. It was originally a newsletter designed to update shoppers on the latest jazz releases and provide jazz radio programmers with a means of...
.
Sathima Bea Benjamin’s most recent CD, SongSpirit, was released on October 17 in celebration of her 70th birthday. A compilation record, it includes tracks from her earlier albums, starting with A Morning In Paris and going through Musical Echoes, plus a previously unreleased duet with Abdullah Ibrahim from 1973.
In 2007, Benjamin began the process of reissuing her now out-of-print back catalogue for download. Cape Town Love, released June 19, began the process, while A Morning in Paris is scheduled next for reissue in October 2007 in preparation for her 71st birthday. It was released for download October 16, and will be reissued onto CD on January 22, 2008. Benjamin's compelling life was the subject of a 2010 documentary film titled "Sathima's Windsong," directed by author and professor, Daniel Yon.