For new disc, saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin rises up like a proverbial ‘Phoenix’

“Phoenix,” the latest disc by rising jazz star Lakecia Benjamin, reflects the trials and tribulations that the saxophonist has endured in recent years. In September 2021, a car accident left her severely injured. And during the pandemic, she lost 15 family members. So “Phoenix,” released in January on Whirlwind Records, celebrates Benjamin’s ultimate triumph over adversity. 

“Of all the albums I’ve done, this is probably the most personal to me,” she said in a recent interview with WBGO-FM, a public-radio station in Newark, New Jersey. In the accident, Benjamin broke three ribs, her scapula, fractured her jaw and perforated an eardrum. “I literally woke up in the woods to some stranger dragging me out of the car. When I went to the hospital, they didn’t know if I was going to make it or not. ... I literally played a great set and four hours later, I was potentially dead.”

At the time of the accident, she had just started writing “Phoenix.” “I didn’t have a name for it or anything, said Benjamin, who will perform April 14 as part of a Symphony Center Presents Jazz concert celebrating the 65th anniversary of the Monterey Jazz Festival (also featuring vocalists Kurt Elling and Veronica Swift, pianist  Christian Sands, drummer Clarence Sands and bassist Yasushi Nakamura). “But I think that experience of just all the hardships we go through in life and just like not knowing” — influenced the album concept.

Joining Benjamin on “Phoenix” was an all-star lineup of Patrice Rushen, Dianne Reeves and Wayne Shorter (who died March 3), and was produced by premier drummer Terri Lyne Carrington. “I wanted to highlight not just that one experience I had of being able to overcome that and still keep going, but I feel like all of us, especially as artists, we overcome a lot of nos,” Benjamin said. “We overcome a lot of finding a way to present the music ourselves when people don’t want to give us a chance. I wanted to highlight that type of resiliency we all have and just even in this time of the pandemic and everything. As a people, how we all find a way to keep rising above.”

The pandemic took an especially heavy toll on Benjamin. “On my mom’s side of the family, we are the only two left. I just think that there’s a lot of time, as artists, we don’t say [anything about that loss] because we just post the glitz and the glam. I feel that we all, as a people, can just identify with needing to have some kind of music to soothe that type of pain and soothe that type of experience. Whether you’re partying through it, whether you’re dancing through it, whether you’re just meditating through it. I feel that we don’t address sometimes the humanity in all of us.

“It’s easy to say, ‘Make your dreams happen.’ It’s really hard to say, ‘Let’s make a game plan together to get you to where you wanted to go.’ I just wanted this music to hold people’s hands and say, ‘Let’s go through it.’ ”