“This show is for Ben,” Hudson River told a packed house on a cold February night. “For my ancestors, for the angels above and for everything above.” To kick off her 2024 residency at Chris’s Jazz Café, she honored a departed young classmate by gathering a band of friends who played alongside him in the Upper Darby High School drumline, where she learned to cherish music herself. The eleven locals filled the room with familial love and candor, braiding vibraphone melodies together with horns and voices, on original tunes and covers of hit songs from a surprising array of styles.

Hudson, who performs under her surname to celebrate her late father, was born in Overbrook and raised in Upper Darby. You might see her outside around the city, anywhere from Clark Park to Rittenhouse Square, and you can’t miss her—if you’ve seen a fly 25-year-old Black woman improvising on a 300-pound mallet instrument in a public space, you probably saw Hudson River. She currently lives in Powelton and transports her vibraphone around town riding an electric bike with a hunting trailer. (“You can put deer on it!”) Along with jazz and R&B, she holds a passion for drumline and dreams of directing one someday.

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