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Benjamin Lapidus

Benjamin Lapidus is a Grammy-nominated musician who has performed and recorded throughout the world as a bandleader and supporting musician playing guitar, Cuban tres, Puerto Rican cuatro, touchstyle/tapping instruments (Warr guitar and Chapman Stick), as well as organ. As a scholar he has published widely on Latin music, and he is a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, and The Graduate Center.

Since the 1990s, Lapidus has performed and/or recorded Cuban tres, Puerto Rican cuatro, guitar, voice, and other instruments on film soundtracks, video games, television commercials, and albums with some of the most notable musicians in Latin music and jazz. Some of these collaborations include performances and/or recordings with Andy and Jerry González, Ibrahim Ferrer (Buena Vista Social Club), Pío Leyva (Buena Vista Social Club), Manuel “Puntillita” Alicea (Buena Vista Social Club), Bobby Carcassés, Orlando “Cachaíto” López, Juan Pablo Torres, NEA Jazz Master Cándido Camero, Larry Harlow, Ruben Blades, Típica 73, John “Dandy” Rodríguez, David Oquendo, Xiomara Laugart, Nicky Marrero, Nelson González, Carlos Abadie, Los Hacheros, Pedrito Martínez, Roman Díaz, Paul Carlon, Adonis Puentes, Pablo Menéndez, Bobby Sanabria, Ralph Irizarry, Charlie Sepulveda, Luis Marín, Humberto Ramírez, Harvie S., Hiram “El Pavo” Remón, Gene Jefferson, Frank Anderson, Enid Lowe, Jared Gold, Greg Glassman, Bobby Harden, Brian Lynch, Mark Weinstein, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Larry Goldings, Chico Álvarez, Alfredo “Chocolate” Armenteros, Emilio Barretto, Eddie Zervigón, José Fajardo, Rudy Calzado, Los Afortunados, Jose Conde, Kaori and Yuko Fujii, Roberto Rodríguez, Maurice El Medioni, Michael Torsone, and many others.

As the leader of the Latin jazz group, Sonido Isleño (founded in 1996), he has performed throughout North and South America, Europe, and the Caribbean while releasing five internationally acclaimed albums of his original compositions. In 2007, Lapidus served as musical director and arranger for Garota de Ipanema (JVC/Victor Japan) with Kaori Fujii and toured Japan twice. In 2008, he recorded Herencia Judía and in 2014, he released his eighth album as a leader, Ochósi Blues. Blues for Ochún (2023) is his ninth album as a leader. As a composer, Lapidus’ music has been recorded by groups in Cuba and Japan, and has been featured in documentaries and television. In 2015, Latinjazz USA awarded Lapidus a lifetime achievement award for his contributions to Afro-Latin music. In 2015, he wrote the liner notes, contributed an original composition, sang, and played electric guitar and Cuban tres on Andy González’s Grammy™-nominated album, Entre Colegas.

As profiled on the 2023 television show, Shades of Us (https://youtu.be/I_xMYUtgAhA), Benjamin Lapidus was born in Hershey, PA in 1972 to first-generation Brooklynites and the family moved almost 15 times before returning to New York City when Lapidus was 14. Trained in piano from a young age, he moved through a variety of instruments including trumpet and bass before concentrating on the guitar. Lapidus was exposed to music by his grandmother and his father, who played in Latin and jazz bands in the Catskills in the 1950s. Through his father’s record collection and stories of his father’s visits with his Latin American relatives, the seeds of Latin music were planted. Yet it wasn’t until the 1980s that the youngest Lapidus became immersed in Latin music, when he moved to a predominantly Latin neighborhood in New York City, where numerous important musicians also resided. Living a block away from Mikel’s jazz club, Lapidus still has vivid memories of practicing in Mario Rivera’s house or seeing Mario Bauzá walk down the street. Deciding he needed a complete musical education, Lapidus earned two degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and Oberlin College, becoming one of the program’s first jazz guitar graduates. In 1994, Lapidus started to play the Puerto Rican cuatro and Cuban tres. After leading his own quartet at festivals and clubs throughout Europe and winning a grant to study briefly with Steve Lacy in Paris, he returned to the U.S. and worked with Joe McPhee, Joe Giardullo, Tani Tabal, Thomas Workman, and other creative improvisers.

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Radio & Podcasts

Tal Farlow, Herbie Hancock, Hazel Scott & Benjamin Lapidus

Read "Tal Farlow, Herbie Hancock, Hazel Scott & Benjamin Lapidus" reviewed by Joe Dimino


We begin the 808th Episode of Neon Jazz with the title track off guitarist Benjamin Lapidus's 2023 album Blues for Ochún. From there, we hear from the legendary Herbie Hancock who Lapidus saw at his first concert. As the show moves forward, we hone in on the female voices in jazz here in 2023 with Jan Cronin, Imogen Moon and Laila Biali. Drummer Kenneth Watson, Jr. is making waves in Kansas City and we have a tune with him sitting ...

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Album Review

Benjamin Lapidus: Herencia Judia

Read "Herencia Judia" reviewed by Michael P. Gladstone


Benjamin Lapidus is a 36 year-old musician, born in Hershey, Pennsylvania, who spent a childhood resettling some fifteen times before returning to New York at age 14. His cultural Jewish upbringing and family residence in Latin neighborhoods of New York fused these two musical cultures and Herencia Judia is a serious and most ambitious effort that legitimizes the combination.

Lapidus' expertise is featured on the tres, a small three string Spanish guitar. The basis of this album arose ...

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Album Review

Benjamin Lapidus: Herencia Judia

Read "Herencia Judia" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni


Latin music scholar and Cuban tres master Benjamin Lapidus expands the definition of the new breed of Latin-Jewish music on his new solo disc, Herencia Judia. Lapidus has worked in the past with renowned free jazz masters such as Steve Lacy and Joe McPhee, and took part in other Jewish music projects such as the recent La Mar Enfortuna's Convivencia (Tzadik, 2007) or the collaboration of percussionist Roberto Juan Rodriguez with Algerian pianist Maurice El Medioni, Descarga Oriental (Piranha, 2006). ...

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Recording

Benjamin Lapidus Releases "Ochosi Blues"

Benjamin Lapidus Releases "Ochosi Blues"

Source: Scott Thompson Public Relations

WORLD-RENOWNED CUBAN TRES AND GUITAR VIRTUOSO BENJAMIN LAPIDUS NEW CD “OCHOSI BLUES" RELEASE AUGUST 1, 2014 World-renowned Cuban tres and guitar virtuoso Benjamin Lapidus and his new group Kari- B3 release OCHOSI BLUES (Tresero Productions) on August 1, 2014. It is his long awaited 7th Latin jazz recording and 8th as a bandleader. The album features heavyweights from the Latin and jazz worlds such as Pedrito Martínez, NEA Jazzmaster Cándido Camero, 7- time Grammy nominee Bobby Sanabria, Jared Gold (organ), ...

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