Ben Rubin
Whether he’s mashing up hip-hop and jazz with Masta Ace and Donny McCaslin, rocking the bass with Lower Power or Marshall Crenshaw, or producing the jazz organ trio Larry Goldings/Peter Bernstein/Bill Stewart, 2x-Grammy-nominated producer/mixer/bassist Ben Rubin is known for making music that is genre-bending or pure or both.
A seven-time pick as a DownBeat International Critics’ Poll “Rising Star Producer,” he has also played upright bass at Newport Jazz Festival with Dred Scott Trio, remixed tracks for Killah Priest and Karsh Kale, and won an Independent Music Award with his critically- acclaimed trip-hop band Mudville. Ben has well over 150 recording credits in a diversity of genres, including many releases for the Ropeadope, SmallsLive and Imani labels.
Lately, he has been working with an electric roster of artists including James Maddock. Queen Esther, Erik Deutsch & Theo Bleckmann, Steve Conte (New York Dolls), Stripmall Ballads, Rachel Eckroth (St. Vincent), Caleb Wheeler Curtis, KJ Denhert, E.Smitty, Yann Yankielewicz (Tony Allen), Asa Bry and Mitra Sumara.
In 2019, Ben and Analog Players Society founder Amon Drum convened New York jazz greats tenor saxophonist Donny McCaslin (David Bowie), pianist Orrin Evans, bassist Dezron Douglas, and drummer Eric McPherson to a single three-hour recording session, which, yielded both the cut-up hip-hop instrumental record Soundtrack for a Nonexistent Film and the jazz album TILTED, both released in 2020. Then in June 2021, APS released the hip-hop single “Home in America,” featuring legendary Juice Crew MC Masta Ace rhyming over Ben’s “Starry Night” beat. 2021 also saw the release of Shine and the Moonbeams’ track “I Believe” which was included on the Grammy-nominated compilation “All One Tribe”.
In 2018, Ben produced the album Freebird, by Walking Distance ft. Jason Moran. This Charlie Parker-inspired jazz epic, highlighting expansive production choices, garnered critical acclaim and landed on that year’s The New York Times Top Jazz Records list. Four years earlier, with Argentinian composer/pianist Emilio Solla, Ben co-produced the Grammy- nominated Second Half, a large-ensemble tango-jazz masterpiece. His producing and mixing work for SmallsLive, where he released over 30 records featuring many jazz greats like Louis Hayes’s Jazz Incorporated, Harold Mabern Trio, Cyrille Aimée with Roy Hargrove, and many more, was lauded by The New York Times as “beyond reproach.”
Ben has played and recorded both upright and electric bass with a diversity of artists, including James Maddock, Marshall Crenshaw, Queen Esther, Steve Conte, Dred Scott Trio, Chris Brown & Kate Fenner, Lower Power, Patti Rothberg, Courtney Love, Patti Smith, Moby and Bill Frisell. Jazz Times has applauded Ben’s upright bass playing for its “deep, exploratory tone.”
Ben has also composed the scores for director Nelson Kim’s feature film debut, Someone Else, and acclaimed graphic novelist Paul Pope’s space-western short “7x6x2.”