Phoenix

Album review

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 /TiVo