Benjamin Barson is a baritone saxophonist, award-winning composer, educator, and political activist. Barson’s compositions explore the historical Afro-diasporic, American Indigenous and Asian American roots of the jazz idiom. Barson and his partner Gizelxanath Rodriguez have conducted extensive research and political work on behalf of Mexico’s Indigenous Yaqui, Mayan and Zapatista communities. Barson and Rodriguez give voice to this research and advocacy through performance art; they are the founders of an 18-member postcolonial big band, named the “Afro Yaqui Music Collective,” which celebrates the alliance of Indigenous and African resistance in the Americas. Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, has stated that the Afro Yaqui Music Collective “returned this thing called ‘jazz’ back to its real roots—to the earth, to the sky, to the women who produced and protected a people’s culture. Ben Barson, Gizelxanath Rodriguez, and the crew have committed to making liberation music. Don’t miss them--an experience could change your life.”