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Sathima Bea Benjamin was born Beatrice Bertha Benjamin on October 17, 1936 in Claremont, Cape Town, South Africa. As an adolescent, she first performed popular music in talent contests at the local cinema (bioscope) during the intermission. By the 1950s she was singing at various nightclubs, community dances and social events, performing with notable Cape Town pianists Tony Schilder and Henry February, among others. She built her repertoire watching British and American movies and transcribing lyrics from songs heard on the radio. She discovered Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, Doris Day and Ella Fitzgerald who greatly influenced her singing style, phrasing and diction.

At 21, she joined Arthur Klugman’s traveling show, Coloured Jazz and Variety, touring South Africa. When the production failed, she found herself stranded in Mozambique where she met South African saxophonist Kippie Moekets. Returning to Cape Town’s now thriving jazz scene in 1959, Sathima met pianist Dollar Brand, later known to the world as Abdullah Ibrahim. She would marry him in 1965 and the same year record with his trio what would have been the first jazz album in South Africa titled My Songs For You, but it was never released.

In the aftermath of South Africa’s 1960 Sharpeville Massacre, Benjamin and Ibrahim left South Africa for Europe, settling in Zurich. Along with bassist Johnny Gertze and drummer Makhaya Ntshoko they worked throughout Germany and Scandinavia, meeting and occasional working with American jazz players, such as, Don Byas, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Drew, Ben Webster, Bud Powell, John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk. The artist who would have the greatest impact on Benjamin’s life, however, was Duke Ellington.

Benjamin met Duke Ellington while he was in Zurich in 1963 asked that he hear her husband’s trio at the Club Africana. Obliging but insisting that she sing for him. Following this encounter, Ellington arranged for the couple to fly to Paris and record separate albums for Sinatra’s Reprise label. Her recording, A Morning in Paris, was thought lost and remained unreleased until 1966. Maintaining her musical relationship with Ellington she performed with his band in the U.S. at the Newport Jazz Festival. He subsequently asked her to join his band permanently but being newly wedded she declined.

Throughout the 1960s, Sathima moved back and forth between Europe and New York City as manager and agent for her husband while raising their son, Tsakwe. Returning to South Africa 1976 she gave birth to a daughter and recorded African Songbird, and then returned to New york City the following year. Launching her own record label, ekapa rpm, to produce, publish and distribute her and Ibrahim’s music, between 1979 and 2002, she released eight of her own albums on ekapa: Sathima Sings Ellington, Memories and Dreams, Windsong, Lovelight, Southern Touch, Cape Town Love, Musical Echoes and Dedications, the last receiving a Grammy nomination.

Benjamin collaborated on these albums with saxophonist Carlos Ward, pianists Stephen Scott, Kenny Baron,, Larry Willis and Onaje Allan Gumbs, bassist Buster Williams and drummers Billy Higgins and Ben Riley. She has been the recipient of South Africa’s Order of Ikhamanga Silver Award, was the feature of a 2010 documentary film Sathima’s Windsong, and has had a co-authorhip of her life Musical Echoes: South African Women Thinking In Jazz.

Sathima Bea Benjamin returned to Cape Town in 2011, where she continued to work as a vocalist until passing away on August 20, 2013, aged 76.

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