In March 2020, saxophonist
Lakecia Benjamin released
Pursuance: The Colltranes, her fiery, imaginative third album. While driving home from a performance in Ohio in 2021, her car left the road in a rural area and flipped over in a drainage ditch. She suffered multiple injuries including neurological damage and a broken jaw. Three weeks later she was touring Europe.
Phoenix is her fourth album. Co-produced with
Terri Lyne Carrington,
Benjamin appended her working quartet --
Victor Gould (piano, organ, Fender Rhodes),
E.J. Strickland (drums), and
Ivan Taylor (basses) -- with a large guest list. She includes a string trio, trumpeters, pianist
Patrice Rushen, singers, poets, and polemicists.
Opener "Amerikkan Skin" commences with the sounds of sirens and gunshots before activist/writer
Angela Davis intones, "Revolutionary hope resided precisely among those women who have been abandoned by history." A double bassline, piano, and muted kick drum introduce
Benjamin's alto. She begins with blues then engages trumpeter
Josh Evans and the band in a modernist, modal, post-bopping lope. While "New Mornings" is a jaunty, more straight-ahead adventure, the bluesy poignancy in its melody is haunting.
Georgia Anne Muldrow sings and adds synth to the title cut. The spacy electronic experimentalism in its intro is offset by a lithe yet funky backbeat, knotty harmonics, and a resonant solo from
Benjamin. "Mercy," featuring
Dianne Reeves and a string trio, offers an elegant melody framed by
Gould's insightful pianism and
Benjamin's consummate lyricism. "Jubilation" is fueled by the interaction between
Rushen's driving pianism and
Benjamin's alto. They push the rhythm to the breaking point, and trade fours combining bop, Latin, and modern jazz. Poet
Sonia Sanchez delivers "Blast" to a strutting jazz march carried by
Strickland and
Gould.
Wallace Roney, Jr.'s trumpet and
Benjamin's sax construct a labyrinthine melody that weds blues, soul, gospel, and contemporary jazz. The rhythmically complex "Moods" showcases intense interplay between
Benjamin and
Evans. "Rebirth" is initially contemplative. Atop canny, kinetic interplay between
Gould,
Strickland, and
Taylor,
Benjamin's alto shifts the tune's gear into something breezier and more groove-oriented. The futurist abstraction in "Supernova" features
Wayne Shorter reciting a poem above synth, sax, trumpet, and piano. Two other tunes here offer the kind of sophisticated jazz
Benjamin fans crave. "Trane" is a rumbling, deeply spiritual modal jam that could easily have appeared on
Pursuance. Closer "Basquiat" is more uptempo, with a tight
Ornette-esque head shared by the saxophonist and trumpeter. Their solos underscore that notion as
Gould plots a terrain that bridges present and past.
Benjamin's moaning solo emerges from and evokes the blues as
Taylor soulfully accents her lines before
Evans re-enters and engages the leader in an even thornier outro. The wide sense of adventure on
Phoenix reveals
Benjamin as ambitious as she is focused, energetic, and perceptive. She inspires her band, guests, and listeners with this set of compelling tunes. ~ Thom Jurek