Dave Douglas, Ian Chang, Rafiq Bhatia, James Brandon Lewis – GIFTS (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:03:40 minutes | 761 MB | Genre: Jazz, Contemporary Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Greenleaf Music
“How often do we step back and realize what a gift it is to have this music in our life?” asks acclaimed trumpeter, composer and Greenleaf Music founder Dave Douglas. On Gifts, his newest Greenleaf project, Douglas harnesses that feeling of simple wonder with a new book of pieces and four intriguing takes on Strayhorn songs, premiering a new quartet with poll-sweeping tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis and two members of the Oscar-nominated post-rock trio Son Lux: guitarist Rafiq Bhatia and drummer Ian Chang. The sound is harmonically spacious, with no bass, but a full, sonically adventurous guitar palette from Bhatia that frames the group’s trumpet-tenor melodic concept in fresh and unexpected ways.
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The Messthetics, James Brandon Lewis – The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 46:17 minutes | 896 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Messthetics with James Brandon Lewis
On their Impulse debut album, Washington DC’s experimental jazz punk trio the Messthetics (drummer Brendan Canty and Joe Lally of iconic punk band Fugazi, with guitarist Anthony Pirog) join forces with acclaimed jazz tenor saxophonist, composer and bandleader James Brandon Lewis. Together, they widen the reach of decisive instrumental music through their overlapping of jazz, punk, funk, aggression and innovation.
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James Brandon Lewis – Transfiguration (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 56:12 minutes | 1,18 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Intakt Records
James Brandon Lewis is at the top of the international jazz world. He stands in the tradition of saxophonists such as Sonny Rollins, Albert Ayler and John Coltrane. With his powerful, urgent and rich tenor saxophone sound and a lyrical quality that unfolds in both his solos and his compositions, he is causing a sensation. Transfiguration is the fourth album by the acclaimed James Brandon Lewis Quartet with Aruán Ortiz, Brad Jones and Chad Taylor. The quartet was honored with the German Jazz Award as Band of the Year 2023. John Sharpe writes about the new album Transfiguration in the liner notes: “As the band has matured, the chemistry has deepened. While it’s the melodies that catch your ear first, it’s the first-class interplay that keeps you interested for the long haul.” A pleasure to listen to!
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James Brandon Lewis – For Mahalia, With Love (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:11:35 minutes | 454 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Tao Forms
Gospel music has been a key influence on jazz throughout much of its storied history; on For Mahalia, With Love, the connection is explicit. Inspired by the life and work of gospel legend Mahalia Jackson, tenor saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis has created a fine tribute, and one that is personal: the singer’s impact on his grandmother in turn made an impression on her musical grandson.
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James Brandon Lewis, Chad Taylor – Live in Willisau (Live) (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:06:19 minutes | 793 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Intakt Records
Somewhat forgotten amidst the excitement surrounding James Brandon Lewis’ UnRuly Manifesto (Relative Pitch, 2019) was the excellent release that preceded it. Radiant Imprints (Off, 2018), a duo release with drummer Chad Taylor, put the focus squarely on Lewis’ extraordinary tenor saxophone prowess and his strong accord with one of the most in-demand drummers in creative jazz. If it didn’t have quite the stylistic eclecticism of its successor, it was nevertheless a stimulating release that showed Lewis could more than hold his own on what is one of the most demanding formats for a saxophonist.
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James Brandon Lewis – Eye Of I (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 47:27 minutes | 574 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Anti – Epitaph
James Brandon Lewis is a New York-based jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. His instrumental voice marries the emotional power of gospel and the grit and groove of blues and R&B to the modal and vanguard influences of Albert Ayler and John Coltrane, and Sonny Rollins’ expressive melodic and tonal discipline. Moments, his 2010 debut, was followed by two outings for Sony Masterworks’ revived OKeh imprint: Divine Travels in 2014 and the widely celebrated Days of Freeman the following year. After working American stages and clubs, he toured European and Asian festivals. Radiant Imprints, a duo outing with drummer Chad Taylor, appeared in 2018 and was followed by the quintet offering An UnRuly Manifesto a year later. In 2021, after he was selected as the “Rising Star Tenor Saxophonist” in the Downbeat International Critics Poll, Lewis issued The Jesup Wagon, his debut for Tao Forms. Along the way, Lewis drew the attention of many improvising artists, most notably the saxophonist and jazz deity Sonny Rollins, who doesn’t offer effusive praise very often. Moved by Lewis’ deep, spirit-seeking sound, Rollins said “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.” Eye of I opens with 44 seconds of gritty, high-throttling low-down groove, an ear pulverizing opening designed to cleanse all traces of ordinary from the palette. From there, Lewis offers a prayerful cover of Donnie Hathaway’s “Someday We’ll All Be Free” and then the first of his disarmingly addictive originals, “The Blues Still Blossoms” in addition to many others.
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James Brandon Lewis – Days of FreeMan (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/48 kHz | Time – 1:02:39 minutes | 760 MB | Genre: Jazz
Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | @ Okeh / Sony Music Entertainment
Recorded February 16 & 17, 2015 at Charlestown Road Studios in Hampton, NJ.
Folks, this is “the buffet,” a 19-track serving of bandstand urgency and studio-sonic air traffic out enough to bury all modes of formal enslavement. Out enough, too, to resurrect the “everywhere always” atmosphere of giants, check out the hypnotic, lush and damn-near cine-sound, quilt-like nod to Don Cherry. All songs on Days of FreeMan were written by James Brandon Lewis (except Bomako Love, written by Don Cherry). (more…)
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