Sathima Bea Benjamin born 17 October 1936

Beatrice "Sathima Bea" Benjamin (17 October 1936 – 20 August 2013) was a South African vocalist and composer, based for nearly 45 years in New York City. 

Beatrice Benjamin was born in Johannesburg, but raised in Claremont by her paternal grandmother before the group areas act segregated that suburb. She got her taste for performance in talent shows and, at the age of 21, joined Arthur Klugman’s “Coloured Jazz and Variety” show, to tour Southern Africa. It was a commercial failure, and Benjamin was stranded in Mafikeng (Mahikeng) where she had to perform to earn enough money to travel to Johannesburg where she met South African saxophone and jazz composition legend Kippie Morolong Moeketsi, who helped her join an African band that toured to Mozambique. 

In 1959, she returned to Cape Town and performances with previous bandmates Tony Schilder and Henry February. She also met Abdullah Ibrahim (then playing piano as Dollar Brand) at a fundraiser show about which The Golden City Post crowed that she was “the most promising singer for 1959” writing, “Beatrice Benjamin is the mostest, the greatest and the most appealing girl singer in the Cape.” She also recorded an album with Ibrahim, “My Songs For You“, that was never released. 

Benjamin & Ibraham

After the Sharpeville and Langa Massacres of 21 March 1960 prompted artists and activists to exile themselves, Benjamin left South Africa for Europe with Ibrahim and his jazz trio, Johnny Gertze and drummer Makhaya Ntshoko, to settle in Zurich and tour Germany and Scandinavia, and also dropped “Beatrice” or “Beattie” to become Sathima Bea Benjamin. The South African jazz couple met and worked with jazz luminaries like John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, Dexter Gordon and Bud Powell. Famously, Benjamin met Ellington in Zurich in 1963 and would not rest until she had convinced him to hear Ibrahim’s trio. She also sang to Ellington, following which he flew them to Paris to record separate albums for Frank Sinatra’s record label, Reprise. The “Dollar Brand Trio” album helped launch Ibrahim’s career, but the Benjamin record was unreleased and feared lost until it was finally release in 1996 as “A Morning In Paris” on Benjamin’s own label, Ekapa).

                         Here’s ”Solitude”  from above album.

                              

She maintained her musical relationship with Ellington. In 1965, he arranged to have her perform with his band in the U.S. at the Newport Jazz Festival (when she sang the Ellington ballad "Solitude"), and at one point asked her to join his band permanently. Due to her recent marriage to Ibrahim that same year, Benjamin declined the offer. Throughout the 1960s, Benjamin and Ibrahim moved back and forth between Europe and New York City. Benjamin spent much of the period as a manager and agent for her husband while raising their son, Tsakwe. 

The year 1976 marked a turning point for Benjamin. She and Ibrahim returned to South Africa to live; she gave birth to her daughter, Tsidi (now the underground hip-hop artist Jean Grae); and recorded African Songbird, an album of original compositions, for South Africa's Gallo Records. Shortly after Tsidi's birth, the family relocated to New York city in 1977, to the famed Hotel Chelsea. In 1979, Benjamin started a record label Ekapa to produce and distribute her and Ibrahim's music. Between 1979 and 2002, she released eight of her albums on Ekapa, including Sathima Sings Ellington, Dedications, Memories and Dreams, Windsong, Lovelight, Southern Touch, Cape Town Love, and Musical Echoes. Dedications was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1982. 

In 2000, Danish second-hand bookdealer and fan of South African jazz Lars Rasmussen published a collection of essays and a discography of Benjamin's music in Sathima Bea Benjamin: Embracing Jazz (Copenhagen, 2000). It contains two compact discs of Sathima's music: Cape Town Love and an Embracing Jazz compilation with photographs. 

In October 2004, South African president Thabo Mbeki gave her the Order of Ikhamanga Silver Award for "excellent contribution as a jazz artist" and for her contribution "to the struggle against apartheid." In March 2005, the art group Pen and Brush, Inc. presented her with a Certificate of Achievement for her work as a performer, musician, composer, and "activist in the struggle for human rights in South Africa". Benjamin was profiled in the March 2006 issue of JazzTimes. Her album SongSpirit, was released on 17 October 2006 in celebration of her 70th birthday. A compilation record, it includes tracks from her earlier albums, plus a previously unreleased duet with Abdullah Ibrahim from 1973. 

In 2007, Benjamin began reissuing her back catalogue for download. Cape Town Love, released 19 June, began the process, while A Morning in Paris was reissued in October 2007 to mark her 71st birthday. It was released for download on 16 October, and reissued on CD on 22 January 2008. In December 2008 she performed at the Apollo Theater at the closing of the concert Bricktop at the Apollo, hosted by film director Jordan Walker-Pearlman. She sang "Someone to Watch Over Me". 

She returned to Cape Town in 2011, where she continued to work as a vocalist. She died in her sleep on 20 August 2013 at the age of 76. (Edited from Wikipedia & Cape Argus)