Name: Ben Black Quartet
Start: 2025-04-06T18:00:00-07:00
Location: Seattle Jazz Vespers, 1111 Harvard Ave., Seattle, WA, United States, Washington 98122

Ben Black – vocals; Josh Rawlings – piano; Marina Christopher – bass; Adam Kessler – drums
Ben Black has been a performer on the Seattle jazz scene since 1985, and spent two years as a music student at Cornish College. His career also spans new opera-theatre, cabaret and African drumming and dance. He studied jazz improvisation for a number of years with pioneer jazz vocalist, Jay Clayton.
Ben is proud of his multicultural background which includes ancestors from Armenia, Slovenia, Germany, Scotland and Ireland. He grew up in a military family in which there were a number of musicians. During a five year stay in Europe as a child, he had the opportunity to cultivate an appreciation for the music of different cultures. As he was growing up, his parents exposed him to stellar jazz vocalists and instrumentalists of the times, including Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone, Sergio Mendes and Brazil ’66, and many of the great Broadway musicals of the 20th century.
Ben’s first album on Origin Records, “Remembered Faces/Private Places”, was released in 2001. Previous to the Origin label, he released “In a Mellow Tone”, on MNOP Records, in 1996. He was a featured guest soloist on the album,“Psyche,” by the award winning Fischer ensemble, in 2011, on the 16 Visions label. Black’s newest album “Mystery & Wonder” was one of the biggest gainers-spins according to Jazz Week top 300 chart, December 20, 2021.
Ben splits his time between his music career, dedication to the study and practice of Tibetan and Zen Buddhism, and volunteerism in the LGBTQ2S+ community.
“Ben Black distinguishes himself from the rest of the pack. First, there is his hauntingly beautiful voice capable of hitting high notes that most male singers never reach. Then, there is his treasure chest of surprises and unconventional material.” – Jazz Review (Donna Kimura)
“Ben Black may be the most androgynous voice you will ever hear… He joins the great singer Caetano Veloso in being willing to risk using his full vocal range without filtering it through gender-appropriate sounds. Ben shows that the heart, the soul, and the kundalini energy have no sexual orientation and no gender identity; he has a vocal sound that authentically reverberates in all ears without a definition of either/or.” – Jim Fouratt, for “Listen Up”