James Brandon Lewis Trio
- Garden StageThursday 11•July•2024
"The saxophonist has balanced a deep, gospel -informed spirituality with free jazz- abandon and hard-hitting funk-meets-hip-hop underpinning.” (Rolling Stone)
American saxophonist James Brandon Lewis' resume reads like the ultimate credential. Legend Sonny Rollins - who doesn't often wave the praise and was touched by "Lewis' deep, spirit-seeking sound" - let slip about Lewis: "When I listen to you, I listen to Buddha, I listen to Confucius ... I listen to the deeper meaning of life. You are keeping the world in balance." Master guitarist Marc Ribot describes him as "a keeper of the legacy of John Coltrane" and Moor Mother (Irreversible Entanglements) personally tipped him to us as "the new kid on the block".
Anyone who saw his passage on 'Jazz Is Dead' (the leading concert and album series by founders Adrian Younge and A Tribe Called Quest's Ali Shaheed Muhammad) was immediately won over. Anyone hearing Lewis' version of Donny Hathaway's 'Someday We'll All Be Free' was bound to become an instant fan. His versatility is underlined not only by his collaboration with The Messthetics (consisting of two ex-Fugazi members) but also by his latest album 'For Mahalia, With Love', a tribute to gospel legend Mahalia Jackson. That his previous (also released in 2023) album 'Eye For I' was released via ANTI- (see: Tom Waits, Calexico, Moor Mother) is therefore no coincidence.
Line-up
- James Brandon Lewis: tenor sax
- Josh Werner: bass
- Chad Taylor: drums
