When Lakecia Benjamin named her sixth album “We Dream,” the pronoun was the point.
“The current world we see and live in was created and maintained by the collective,” the alto saxophonist shared, “and if we want a better world filled with more love, kindness and better living, it’s going to take the collective to advocate for it and make that change happen.”
There is no single leader or unifying voice who can do it alone, she added. “We, the people, have to decide what type of planet Earth we want to live on.”
Benjamin brings that message to Philadelphia on Thursday when she headlines the Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Cultural Campus as part of Ensemble Arts Philly’s 2026–27 Jazz Series.
“We Dream,” released June 5 on Artwork Records, practices what its title preaches. Benjamin built it around her working band — pianists Oscar Pérez and Miki Hayama, bassist Elias Bailey, trumpeter Sean Jones, and drummer Jonathan Barber — and invited a deep bench of guests: Terence Blanchard, Chris Potter, Hiromi, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, Bilal, Kassa Overall, Tarriona “Tank” Ball of Tank and the Bangas, and the Roots’ own Black Thought. Benjamin has characterized the record as an attempt to serve as a light of hope in challenging times.
It follows “Phoenix” (2023), which earned three Grammy Award-nominations and an NAACP Image Award nod, and “Pursuance: The Coltranes” (2020), the album that redirected the Washington Heights native from the funk and R&B rooms where she’d long worked — alongside Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, Missy Elliott and the Roots toward the spiritual jazz lineage she now carries.
Philadelphia already knows her. Benjamin played Penn Live Arts’ Coltrane Festival in 2022 and returned to the Annenberg Center stage in May 2025 by popular demand. She said the city’s audiences feel less like a crowd than a church.
“To me the Philly audience is more of a congregational experience,” she explained. “They have such a soul and grit to them that it impacts the music and the artist-audience relationship.”
She welcomes the call-and-response, even when the response isn’t applause. “I love a crowd that isn’t afraid to speak out, for both the good and bad. It makes the show exciting and gives a true experience.” Philadelphia, she states, is one of her favorite places to play music and to watch a football game.
“The Coltrane” connection is significant in a city where John Coltrane developed and matured as a musician. On “Pursuance,” Benjamin gave equal weight to Alice Coltrane, pianist, harpist, composer and spiritual leader, whose work is often overshadowed by her husband’s.
“Alice’s work taught me how important it is to be free in your mind, to live the life you want to inspire others to live,” Benjamin noted. “She honors both the good and challenging times. She is deeply invested in the discipline required to be a leader in music, spirituality and life.”
Asked how she honors her influences while moving past them, Benjamin rejected the premise that she needs anyone’s blessing.
“I don’t ask for permission,” she declared. “I show up with the same integrity and authenticity that Miles and Coltrane embodied.”
That freedom rests on study. “I always do the work and study it takes to keep growing in the tradition,” Benjamin affirmed. “That work will probably be for the rest of my lifetime while still authentically and boldly living in the present of my timeline. Art should reflect the times, culturally and musically.”
Her songwriting process avoids rigid formulas, taking shape differently with every piece whether starting from a message, a groove or a melody.
Benjamin credits a circle of mentors with helping her see a future in jazz before she could picture it herself: tubist Bob Stewart, alto saxophonist Gary Bartz, drummer Rashied Ali, saxophonist Bruce Williams, bassist Reggie Workman, and Sergio Larios.
Two of those names will ring familiar here. Ali and Workman, both Philadelphia-born, played alongside John Coltrane, a direct line from this city’s bandstands to the music Benjamin plays today.
For Benjamin, the question of how to reconnect jazz with Black communities starts with history.
“Jazz was invented and created by Black communities as an expression and direct result of the Black experience in America,” she said. “The soul in this music is connected to the people because it was invented by our people. We just have to get back to remembering the why and the who.”
That’s also her answer for listeners who love hip-hop, gospel or R&B, but find jazz intimidating. They’re already closer than they think.
“Those genres are the children of blues and jazz,” she noted, tracing the family tree: field hollers, then spirituals, then the blues which branched into jazz, gospel, R&B, funk and soul.
Benjamin, who teaches Jazz at Lincoln Center and Jazz House Kids, was blunt about what young players aren’t told: talent alone won’t open the door.
“Many times, we practice the art form and the music and think, ‘As soon as we get talented enough, then comes the money and the ability to make a living,’” she said. “I’m finding that’s what’s needed to keep you in a room, but it cannot help you find that room in the first place.”
What does?
“How to hustle and create opportunities,” she said. “Relationships, grit and grind force people to let you into doors that otherwise would have been locked. And inside those doors, you will have a chance to show your art and personality.”
Anyone who has seen Benjamin live knows the records are only half the story. She plays standing tall, horn raised, often stepping to the mic between solos to preach as much as perform.
“I live for a high-energy, high-octane show,” she remarked. “I give my all on the stage and leave every ounce of myself there for God and the people.”