Tag: Ben Williams

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Brandon Coleman Shares Soulful and Swooning Ballad

Brandon Coleman is a South Central Los Angeles-born and-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger, and composer. Coleman’s older brother put him on to Miles Davis at a very early age. “There would be a lot of times kids at school would be singing a popular song and I wouldn’t know it. Instead, I was blasting Kenny Kirkland and Chick Corea and they’d all think I was speaking another language,” Coleman recalls.

When he was 16, Coleman taught himself piano. By the time he turned 17, he landed his first touring gig with Brian McKnight and since then, he has toured with Babyface, Roy Hargrove, Stanley Clarke, Alicia Keys, and Childish Gambino. Coleman has also been a member of the Brainfeeder crew, contributing his talents to albums by Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, and Flying Lotus among others. He also opened for Flying Lotus back in 2019.

Coleman’s sophomore album Interstellar Black Space is slated for a May 20, 2022 release through Brainfeeder. The album features an incredibly talented cast of guests including Kamasi Washington, Patrice Quinn, Ryan Porter, Keyon Harrold, Ben Williams, and Marcus Gilmore. The album’s second and latest single, the slow-burning, classic soul inspired “Be With Me” exemplifies the label’s cosmic approach towards music: violin, cello and sitar are paired with strummed guitar, a sinuous bass line and Coleman’s expressive tenor to create a song that’s trippy yet swooningly earnest.

“There’s a culture of music that I grew up with that I’ve always loved and it’s always spiritually spoken to my soul: the lyrics of The Delfonics, Four Tops, Manhattans… groups like that motivated me to want to write a truly inspired song,” Coleman explains. “I wrote this in 30 minutes. We recorded it in one take. It’s soul music through the mind of synthesizers!”

Directed by Lauren Desberg, the accompanying video for “Be With Me” is split between footage of Coleman in a sparsely set studio, and a story following a madly in love anime couple on an alien planet. After being proposed to, the woman, who’s also a NASA astronaut tearfully returns back to Earth — and the video is in many ways a heartbreaking trip through what was and what would have been.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Ben Williams is an acclaimed Washington DC-born and-based singer/songwriter, bassist, composer, bandleader and highly sought-after collaborator. Williams graduated from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Michigan State University and The Juilliard School, winning the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition(now known as the Herbie Hancock  International Jazz Competition) back in 2009 and a Grammy Award as a member of Pat Metheny‘s Unity Band. He has collaborated with an impressive and remarkably diverse array of artists including Wynton Marsalis, George Benson, Maxwell, Robert Glasper, Pharrell and a long list of others. (He also appeared in Don Cheadle’s Miles Davis biopic Miles Ahead.)

As a bandleader and composer, Williams has released two albums through renowned jazz label Concord Records — 2011’s State of Art and 2015’s Coming of Age. Slated for a February 7, 2020 release through Jose James‘, Talia Billig‘s and Brian Bender’s Rainbow Blonde Records, Williams third album I AM A MAN references Memphis‘ historic 1968 sanitation workers’ strike, during which African American men marched through the streets with picket signs that read “I Am A Man” in a boldface type. “The image of this long line of men, holding the picket signs, all saying the same thing — there’s something powerful about seeing this message over and over again,” Williams explains, before saying that the messaging reminded him of how we use hashtags today to help ignite and inspire activism today, such as the Black Lives Matter and MeToo movements. But there’s multiple subtle meanings to the album’s title: as Williams said during his performance at the Rainbow Blonde Records NYC Winter Jazz Fest last week the album wasn’t a typical protest album; that it was thematically an exploration of the black male psyche.

Sonically, the album reportedly meshes past, present and future, as it seemingly draws from The Roots, Erykah Badu, Bilal, D’Angelo, Common, Roy Hargrove‘s RH Factor as well as Marvin Gaye‘s What’s Going On, Curtis Mayfield and others.

Williams plays both double bass and electric bass throughout the album’s material, singing lead vocals on almost every single song on the album. He’s joined by an accomplished backing band of collaborators that includes Kris Bowers (keys), David Rosenthal (guitar), Marcus Strickland (tenor sax, bass clarinet), Bendji Allonce (percussion), Keyon Harrold (trumpet), Anne Drummond (flute), Jamire Williams (drums) and Justin Brown (drums). The album also features a handful of songs with  string arrangements performed by a string quartet — Justina Sullivan (cello), Celia Hatton  (viola), Maria Im (violin) and Chiara Fasi (violin), and vocals from Kendra Foster, Muhsimah, Wes Felton and Niles.

The album’s first single is the cinematic “If You Hear Me.” Centered around an spacious and cinematic arrangement featuring a shimmering and soaring string arrangement, African polyrhythm, Williams’ plaintive and soulful vocals, the track manages brings to Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield and Landing on a Hundred-era Cody Chesnutt to mind. The album’s second single, fittingly released today is an atmospheric rendition of the civil rights-era classic “We Shall Overcome” that places the song’s timeless struggle and hope for a far better, more just world into a contemporary context:  reminding the listener that the struggle of MLK, Malcolm X,  The Black Panthers and others,  is the same struggle as Black Lives Matter and other movements.

Williams will be embarking on a handful of live dates that includes a February 8, 2020 album release show at Nublu 151. Check out the live dates below.

 

Tour Dates
2/8: New York, NY @ Nublu 151 (Album Release Show)
3/19: Washington, DC @ City Winery