Sep 3, 2025 12:02 PM
Keeping the Flame at Van Gelder Studio
On the last Sunday of 2024, in the control room of Van Gelder Studio, Don and Maureen Sickler, co-owners since Rudy Van…
Lakecia Benjamin is among 25 artists DownBeat predicts will help shape the future of jazz.
(Photo: Elizabeth Leitzell)Lakecia Benjamin’s approach to jazz is influenced by the belief that Black music of all genres has a shared lineage.
The bandleader said she first picked up a saxophone at the age of 11, but “it wasn’t until I got to high school that I started getting into jazz.” She grew up in a primarily Dominican section of Manhattan, initially playing “a lot of merengue and salsa music,” but also was exposed to soul artists like James Brown and Sly Stone.
“By the time I got to college, I was kind of wide open to the sound of things. I wasn’t thinking, ‘This instrument sounds this way,’” she said. “I was thinking more like, ‘How does the music make me feel?’”
That perspective is reflected in the range of artists Benjamin has collaborated with: A mentee of Gary Bartz, she has toured with Gregory Porter and Alicia Keys, and has shared stages with hip-hop icons Pete Rock and Missy Elliott.
Benjamin’s boundless sensibility also is showcased on a handful of leader dates: While the 2012 release Retox was imbued with the energy of vintage funk and soul, her 2018 album, Rise Up, was inflected with a refreshing hip-hop sensibility.
Her 2020 album, Pursuance: The Coltranes (Ropeadope), is a rarity, a record simultaneously paying tribute to Alice and John Coltrane. Given her musical pedigree, though, it makes perfect sense for Benjamin’s first recorded homage to be conceptually inventive, yet rooted in heritage.
“I felt incomplete just honoring one person even though, of course, John Coltrane’s music is amazing,” said Benjamin, who helmed a 2018 tribute to the saxophonist at Jazz at Lincoln Center for the Monday Nights with WBGO series.
Since releasing Pursuance, Benjamin topped the category Rising Star–Alto Saxophone in the DownBeat Critics Poll and was named Up and Coming Musician of the Year at the Jazz Journalists Association Awards.
After the success of her latest album, which featured jazz heavyweights like Regina Carter, Ron Carter and Reggie Workman (who also served as co-producer), Benjamin said she wants to continue drawing from the well of music history, to honor “these legends while they’re here, using their guidance to keep moving forward, because I think that’s a big part of the tradition.” But she also reflected on those who no longer are here.
“The whole time I was recording [Pursuance], I was imagining that [Alice and John] were sitting in front of me, watching the session. [I asked myself,] would they be pleased with my behavior in the studio, every note I played, how I’m talking, how I’m arranging?” DB
This story originally was published in the November 2020 issue of DownBeat. Subscribe here.
Don and Maureen Sickler serve as the keepers of engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s flame at Van Gelder Studio, perhaps the most famous recording studio in jazz history.
Sep 3, 2025 12:02 PM
On the last Sunday of 2024, in the control room of Van Gelder Studio, Don and Maureen Sickler, co-owners since Rudy Van…
Trio aRT with its avalanche of instrumentation: from left, Pheeroan akLaff, Scott Robinson and Julian Thayer.
Sep 3, 2025 12:03 PM
Trio aRT, a working unit since 1988, shockingly released its very first studio recording this summer. Recorded in…
“Think of all the creative people I’m going to meet and a whole other way of thinking about music and a challenge of singing completely different material than I would have sung otherwise to my highest level in dedication to the moment,” Elling says about his Broadway run.
Sep 9, 2025 1:18 PM
Kurt Elling was back at home in Chicago, grabbing some family time in a late-June window between gigs. Sporting a smile…
Pat Metheny will perform with his Side-Eye III ensemble at Big Ears 2026 in Knoxville, Tennessee, next March.
Sep 9, 2025 12:19 PM
Big Ears has announced the lineup for its 2026 festival, which will take place March 26–29 and include 250…
Mark Masters, right, with Billy Harper.
Sep 3, 2025 12:00 PM
The Rising Star Category of this publication’s annual Critics Poll was once called Talent Deserving Wider Recognition…
