MUSICAL ECHOES, South African women thinking in jazz

348pp., illus., paperback, Duke University Press, Durham, 2011

ISBN: 9780822349143

The biography of South African jazz vocalist and composer Sathima Bea Benjamin.

Sathima Bea Benjamin was born in Cape Town in the 1930s. In 1962 she and Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim) left South Africa together for Europe, where they met and recorded with Duke Ellington. They moved between Europe, the USA and South Africa until 1977, when they moved to New York City and declared their support for the ANC. In New York, Benjamin established her own record company and recorded her music independently from Ibrahim.

“Muller's biography-plus, of and with Sathima Bea Benjamin, is welcome for many reasons; first and foremost because it spotlights a brilliant architect of song who is far less well known than she should be. But Muller goes further. She challenges still dominant androcentric and Amerocentric jazz discourses, offering alternative frameworks that allow us to consider the dynamics of race, class and gender within whose maelstrom Benjamin shaped her sound.” Gwen Ansell, Mail & Guardian

“The story of this magnificent South African artist is, by itself, worth the price of admission. To this, Muller adds a rich (and largely unexplored) archive of jazz history and a host of useful theoretical tools, which, presented with stylistic grace and a spirit of ethnographic empathy, will likely make Musical Echoes a landmark in contemporary music scholarship and the contemporary Black Atlantic.” Ryan Thomas Skinner, Research in African Literatures

Carol Ann Muller is Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Focus: Music of South Africa and South African Music: A century of traditions in transformation.

Sathima Bea Benjamin was the founder of Ekapa Records and a Grammy-nominated musician who released a dozen recordings, including Dedications, Cape Town Love, and Musical Echoes. In 2004, South Africa’s president, Thabo Mbeki, honoured her with the Order of Ikhamanga Silver Award in recognition of her musical artistry and anti-apartheid activism.