Casey Benjamin
Saxophone / Vocals / Alto Saxophone

Casey Benjamin

(1980–)

A vocoder takes a voice into a microphone and transforms the breath through a synthesizer. The overlap with saxophone — blowing through a tube, shaping pitch with the body — is not coincidence. Benjamin treats the vocoder as an instrument, not an effect. That sound on 'Black Radio' — impossible to tell if it's human or machine — is deliberately engineered. In Glasper's band, his vocoder functions as a full voice equal to the saxophone: carrying melody, moving contrapuntally, sometimes determining the whole character of a track.

Casey Benjamin's videos

The 2014 Tiny Desk — the canonical Robert GlasperRobert GlasperRobert Glasperロバート・グラスパー Experiment lineup. Casey BenjaminCasey BenjaminCasey Benjaminケイシー・ベンジャミン's vocoder and sax, Derrick HodgeDerrick HodgeDerrick Hodgeデリック・ホッジ's bass, Mark ColenburgMark Colenburgマーク・コレンバーグ's drums, all dissolving the lines between jazz, neo-soul, and hip-hop.

— NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert, 2014

Videos featuring Casey Benjamin

Robert Glasper Experiment album featuring Casey Benjamin

Black Radio
Black Radio
Robert Glasper Experiment · 2012

Black RadioBlack RadioBlack RadioRobert Glasper Experiment · 2012 (2012) brought hip-hop and R&B fully into jazz on Robert GlasperRobert GlasperRobert Glasperロバート・グラスパー's terms, winning the Grammy for Best R&B Album. With Erykah Badu, Mos Def, and Bilal as guests, it physically expanded jazz's boundary.

— Black Radio (Robert Glasper Experiment album), Wikipedia, 2024

Casey Benjamin's albums