Sathima Bea Benjamin. The name rings with enough familiar mystique to enthrall the musically conscientious and the politically conscious. It’s a name rekindling memories of her pristine interpretations of the songs of Duke Ellington, her musical mentor. It rings with the reminder of her somewhat funky 1988 tribute to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela on her most well-known album, Love Light.
While the music on Love Light sounds fresher than ever, it’s those old struggle lyrics that, these days, sound slightly odd. Benjamin’s new album, Cape Town Love (Ekapa Records), is free from politics, but conceptually as conscientising as ever.
Benjamin is a divided soul. On the one hand she’s just an old sentimentalist. On the other, she’s a voice of freedom who accompanied her husband, Abdullah Ibrahim, into exile in New York. There she made the acquaintance of Ellington, God to the cocktail-hour sirens.
But that’s not where she began. What younger jazz listeners won’t remember is the Cape Town music scene of the Fifties, when, according to Benjamin, coloured musicians played the white clubs. This year she teams up with her old band from those days, particularly veteran pianist Henry February (who’s never been recorded), to recount her roots.
It’s a nostalgia trip that includes such old favourites as I Only Have Eyes for You and If You Were the Only Boy in the World – unusually interpreted, for posterity.