 Another
honour for SathimaCape Town born jazz singer, Sathima Bea Benjamin notched up another honour when a book was released last week featuring her life. It is called Embracing Jazz and is the first of a new series of portraits of contemporary jazz musicians. Booktrader's Jazz Profiles will deal with people from what Downbeat magazine names as "talent deserving wider recognition". The book is edited by Lars Rasmussen and published by Booktrader Copenhagen 2000. Sathima needs no introduction. She boasts no less than nine albums under her own name (including one Grammy nominated) and has recorded with some of the leading artists in the world like Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn and her husband Abdullah Ibrahim. At the moment Dr Carol Ann Muller of Pennsylvania University is working on a larger scholarly work on Sathima. Embracing Jazz is a nostalgic peep into Sathima's life, her introduction to music and the giant strides she made in spite of all the odds. It tells of her upbringing in Cape Town under the loving guidance of her grandmother, her introduction to the night clubs of the city and her abhorrence of the apartheid system. 
Her struggle in the face of unenviable difficulties eventually saw her
leaving South Africa in 1962 for Zurich in Switzerland. She describes her
first few months in Switzerland as "really rough" but her big break came
when Duke Ellington visited the Africana Club where she and Abdullah's
trio were playing. He was so impressed with their talent that he arranged
for them to travel to Paris for a recording session.
The rest is history. Sathima went on to perform at Newport with the late great Duke (pictured above with Sathima) and his band that included Cootie Williams and Cat Anderson. One of the albums she recorded, Sathima Sings Ellington, was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1982. Sathima and Abdullah eventually settled in New York and although those early years were spent with her two children, assisting Abdullah in his career and, occasionally undertaking recording projects of her own, she performed live on several occasions. Jazz critics loved her sound and style and she received rave reviews for her performances -- especially at the Carnagie Recital Hall. 
But Sathima never forgot her South African roots and returned often to
perform and record with her old buddies, Basil Moses, Vincent Pavitt and
Henry February (pictured left)
In August 1999 she received the South African Women for Women award for her outstanding achievements. In her acceptance speech she said: "Getting an award had never been my intention or my goal for doing what I do. I have my own homespun philosophy that tells me to keep doing for myself and others. This is to me the natural state of being with God". A novel feature of Embracing Jazz is that it comes with two of Sathima's best CD's -- Cape Town Love and Embracing Jazz. It features her singing some beautiful oldies like Solitude and Indian Summer. The album also includes Nations in Me, Africa, Windsong and Gift of Love. What I loved about the book was the great selection of pictures that Sathima made available for the first time. It gives the book that personal touch. ColinD
, 1999. Best Viewed with Netscape Navigator Webmaster:
COLIN DEDRICKS
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