Apr 2, 2024 12:59 PM
Saxophonist, Sonic Explorer Casey Benjamin Dies at 45
Casey Benjamin, the alto saxophonist, vocalist, keyboardist and producer who stamped his distinctive sounds on the…
Alex Lopez
(Photo: )It is a warm afternoon when tenor saxophonist Alex Lopez invites two good friends over to his apartment in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights to practice. Bassist Lauren Falls and pianist Sam Harris arrive and set up; lunch is discussed and delayed, while the smell of homecooked food wafts in through an open window. The trio is warmed up by the time it tackles “End Of A Dream,” one of Lopez’s original
compositions from his self-released debut CD, We Can Take This Boat. Harris, who plays on the album, leads the way with a stately introduction on an electric keyboard, and then Lopez joins in and complements the meandering melody before embarking on a twisting solo that alternates between long, expressive whole notes and well-placed, staccato half and quarter notes. The rich, expansive tone of Lopez’s sax playing is full of confidence and creates a discernible melodic path, even in his improvising, rather than merely showcasing virtuosity or technique.
All eight songs on We Can Take This Boat are Lopez’s own; the composition process began, he says, in late 2008 and early 2009 while he was finishing graduate studies at the Manhattan School of Music. The album works as a song cycle that reflects on the end of a relationship doomed by long distance. Opening with the bold and assertive “Rejected”—Lopez isn’t hiding from the facts here—the album then returns to the early days of the romance with the dreamy tune “Sleep Like A Starfish,” which underscores the saxophonist’s preoccupation with melodies that stretch out.
The album’s title alludes to a line of dialog spoken by Bruce Lee in the classic 1973 martial-arts film Enter The Dragon. The disc’s title track features a funky drum intro from Norman Edwards, which leads Harris and bassist Linda Oh to produce a dramatic vamp that Lopez and guitarist Greg Duncan build on.
“What’s the point of music without a story?” Lopez asks aloud later when talking about his composing style. “I was writing some of my best music ever during a time when I wasn’t happy, and this gave me a chance to express my emotions and make sense of it all by recalling what happened.” Harris’ piano work on “Rejected” conveys an angry mood, while the songs “Curtains” and “Remember When” are, in turns, pensive and reflective, full of yearning but not mawkish.
Lopez explains that “End Of A Dream” was spurred by a realization: “I’d never get this girl back again—and my acceptance of this.” The album’s defiant closer, “Trying To Start Over,” is framed by power chords that resemble Radiohead, the melody announcing that Lopez is ready to love again. “These are lyrical, straightforward stories,” says Harris of the album’s tracks. “People relate to their universal themes.”
One of seven children, Lopez hails from a small town in central Wisconsin. He grew up listening to classical music and Broadway musicals, then started playing saxophone in 5th grade. Vince Guaraldi’s music for the animated “Peanuts” TV specials turned him on to jazz, and the discovery of Sonny Rollins’ Saxophone Colossus sealed his fate. “I enjoyed skateboarding with my friends, but they listened to techno while I was getting serious about the saxophone,” Lopez says.
He attended the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Jerry Bergonzi. “From the start, Alex had a sound and direction in mind that he wanted, and that separated him from a lot of his peers,” Bergonzi recalls. Focused musically but having a restless nature, Lopez maintained an itinerant lifestyle. He transferred to the University of Miami, where he graduated, and soon afterward found work on a cruise line as a band musician. Then there was his stint teaching saxophone at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas before he moved to New York for graduate school. An ardent gymnast and martial-arts expert—his sparsely furnished apartment is adorned with posters of Bruce Lee and John Coltrane—Lopez supported his jazz career by teaching gymnastics on Long Island (and living with his sister in Brooklyn) before spending another long stretch aboard a cruise ship, enjoying the luxe life while fattening his bank account.
For Lopez, it is imperative to perform new music—original compositions, his own or others’, as well as the jazz-influenced arrangements he writes for Fighting in the Streets, the quintet he co-founded with Edwards three years ago that is devoted to covering music from video games.
“Most artists in the pop and rock worlds play their own songs, so I don’t understand the need to base a career on playing standards,” explains Lopez. “As a composer, I want to perform what I write and see the response I get. For me, the songs on We Can Take This Boat are still happening, and I want people to know them.”
—Thomas Staudter
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