Sathima Bea Benjamin’s SongSpirit

            Our Chelsea Hotel neighbor, Sathima Bea Benjamin, has just released a new CD, SongSpirit, on Ekapa Records.  Interspersing old jazz standards with her own original songs, the CD covers almost her entire career, from an early recording with Duke Ellington in Paris in 1963, to her latest session in Capetown in 2002.
            Sathima has a very fine voice, which can range from the sweet, upbeat and buoyant, as in “Ah Sweet Mystery of Life” and “I Only Have Eyes For You,” to the smooth, sultry and sexy, as in the Ellington piece, “I Got it Bad and that Ain’t Good” and “Lush Life,” both of which really evoke the feel of the smoky night club.  I’d have to say that “Lush Life” was one of my favorites on the CD: I listened to it over and over.
            Three of Sathima’s own songs appear on the CD as well.  I particularly liked “Children of Soweto,” with it’s cheerful, uplifting folk beat, and “Africa,” a moving evocation of returning home to her native South Africa after years of Exile.  In the latter, with the haunting Saxophone of Carlos Ward echoing in the background, Sathima sings, “I’ve come home to feel my people’s warmth, to shelter ‘neath your trees, to catch the summer breeze...”  Also of note on the piece is the piano of Onaje Allan Gumbs.
            Sathima is married to the great jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, and the selection she recorded with him, “It Never Entered My Mind,” is another of the highlights of the album.  Ibrahim’s delicate, tinkling piano sounds almost classical on this piece.
            Yet another highlight of the CD is the bittersweet “Indian Summer,” with its evocation of love that almost was, and of the promise of dreams that will never come true.
            If you like jazz, or even if you don’t, you can’t go wrong with this CD.  It’s mellow and relaxing and provides a welcome break from the jarring dissonance of the city.  The CD rewards repeated listening, and stands as an eloquent summation of Sathima’s lifelong body of work. (Ed Hamilton)