James Brandon Lewis Trio (US)
James Brandon Lewis Trio
US
Friday, 12 July, at 21.00
CD Park
James Brandon Lewis, tenor sax
Josh Werner, el. bass
Chad Taylor, drums
CD Park + CD Club day pass,
12 July: EUR 15
In just over a decade, James Brandon Lewis’s unique blend of gospel, blues, r&b with the incendiary saxophone explorations of luminaries John Coltrane, Albert Ayler and Sonny Rollins, has put him on the jazz map as one of America’s most prolific saxophonists. His story is a classic one: he moved to New York in 2012 and in doing so redirected from gospel to jazz. His debut album, Divine Travels, came out in 2014, and in 2022 Jesup Wagon was voted the Downbeat's Critics' Choice for Album of the Year. He comes to Ljubljana in a flurry of recently spawned, uncannily accomplished albums: Eye of I (on Anti -), For Mahalia, With Love (with his Red Lily quintet), Transfiguration (with quartet) and The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis (with The Messthetics).
His playing is perhaps best summed up by the New York scene authority, Marc Ribot: “His solos are like a jumbo jet. You need to give them plenty of runway space to take off and land. Because they’re huge, not just in terms of sound, chops, soul, ideas, energy, and originality, but because they’re carrying a precious cargo: the living legacy of John Coltrane.”
