A saxophone player and her three bandmates made me nostalgic from when I used to play the double bass string in high school.

Lakecia Benjamin, an alto saxophonist from New York, walked into the center stage light in front of a crowd of mellow audience members.

Benjamin performed a range of jazz pieces with her three bandmates at the Hammer Theatre on Friday evening.

Against the purple lights, Benjamin stood out in her top-to-bottom metallic gold outfit as her bandmates continued to play music in the background.

Born and raised in Dominican Washington Heights, New York, Benjamin first started playing music on the recorder in grade school, according to her website.

After years of practice, Benjamin is currently a three-time nominated saxophonist, arranger, composer and educator, according to the same webpage.

On Sunday, she debuted her album “Phoenix” on Whirlwind recordings, according to the same bio.

“We released an album titled, ‘Phoenix’ that features some of my heroes,” Benjamin said. “ ‘Sheroes’ we call them sometimes.”

The album contains many women well-known in the jazz industry including Diana Reeves, Patrice Rushen and more.

The first song she and her band performed was “Amerikkan Skin” featuring words written by Angela Davis.

Davis was a Black American and lesbian political activist and author during the 1940s, and was an active member of the Black Panther Party, according to a webpage from the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

“I dream of a world where peace is possible, for every man, for every nation, for every creed,” Benjamin said at the beginning of the song. “When the sun shines down and we truly know what it means to live, love, learn and be free together. Tonight San José, we are celebrating power and joy and peace and unity and liberty and justice and revolution for everyone all over the planet.”

Throughout the rest of her song, she performed through her saxophone dreamy melody that was comparable to “Tales of 1001 Nights” by Nikolai ​​Rimsky-Korsakov, a classical composer from St. Petersburg, according to a webpage from San Francisco Classical Voices. 

The musical themes throughout the rest of her band’s performance bounced back and forth between energetic and extroverted top notes to smooth trills into more soothing notes. 

Benjamin’s bandmate and pianist, Zaccai Curtis, used his fingers to fly across the piano, melting light and midtone notes to balance out the brassy and bold notes from the saxophone

E.J. Strickland, the band’s drummer, managed to keep the melodic environment upbeat with the sounds of his drums and symbols.

Finally double bass player, Elias Bailey, kept the foundation of the performance grounded letting his strings and his notes rumble.

I happen to be biased towards his performance because the double bass string, a large wooden instrument that produces low notes, has a special place in my heart thanks to middle school and high school orchestra classes.

Watching him play in contrast to Benjamin’s high notes made me long for the feel of the wood of my old instrument rumble against my belly.

That’s when I started to wish that I had gotten the opportunity to play jazz pieces written and performed by a mix of black, brown and white people back in my earlyTThe school days.

My orchestra would have felt way more exciting instead of just playing classical pieces written and performed by white men on a stage.