James Brandon Lewis

James Brandon Lewis Quartet - Molecular (2020)  Music

Posted by delpotro at Dec. 15, 2020
James Brandon Lewis Quartet - Molecular (2020)

James Brandon Lewis Quartet - Molecular (2020)
EAC Rip | FLAC (tracks+log+.cue) - 268 Mb | MP3 CBR 320 kbps - 121 Mb | Covers included | 00:46:54
Contemporary Jazz, Modern Creative | Label: Intakt Records

Saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis possesses an inspiring energy. His deep curiosity and the thrill he gets from discovery are crucial facets of his personality, and qualities that guide his art. Over the last half-decade he’s emerged as one of the most exciting figures in jazz and improvised music, a voracious listener who rejects stylistic hierarchies and one that has feverishly explored new ideas and embraced fresh motivations with every new project. Inspired by molecular biology James Brandon develops a special system for a surprising and beautiful music with his Quartet with drummer Chad Taylor, pianist Aruán Ortiz, and bassist Brad Jones. He has taken the idea of a “Molecular Systematic Music” to heart in the formulation of the compositions featured on the stunning debut album by this quartet.
James Brandon Lewis - For Mahalia, With Love / These Are Soulful Days (2023)

James Brandon Lewis - For Mahalia, With Love / These Are Soulful Days (2023)
EAC Rip | FLAC (tracks+log+.cue) - 730 Mb | MP3 CBR 320 kbps - 284 Mb | 02:03:42
Contemporary Jazz, Modern Creative, Spiritual Jazz, Avant-Garde Jazz | Label: TAO Forms

Love is connection. Love is gratitude. Love is passion. Love is audacity. These qualities define tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis’ second album with the glorious Red Lily Quintet: For Mahalia, With Love. Whereas Lewis used his transformative talents to illuminate renaissance man George Washington Carver in a whole new way on Jesup Wagon, the groundbreaking 2021 masterpiece that swept most major jazz polls, the saxophonist does the same for the pioneering gospel-music force of nature Mahalia Jackson. But this time it’s personal, because Lewis lived her music growing up in Buffalo, N.Y., playing there in churches as a youth and being nurtured by his grandmother, who had received Mahalia’s singing like a bolt from above.
James Brandon Lewis Quartet - Msm Molecular Systematic Music Live (2022)

James Brandon Lewis Quartet - Msm Molecular Systematic Music Live (2022)
FLAC (tracks), Lossless / MP3 320 kbps | 1:29:55 | 533 / 205 Mb
Genre: Contemporary Jazz, Modern Creative / Label: Intakt Records

The charismatic saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis is the musician of the moment in the broad field of contemporary jazz. After the internationally acclaimed albums Molecular and Code of Being, he now presents a double CD of a memorable concert with his top-class quartet. The demanding but thoroughly melodic compositions of Molecular shine on this live album compared to the studio album in an unleashed form and with much desire to create and courage for open interplay. “The live recording shows not only the great joy of playing and pleasure in interplay and groove, but also the musical maturation process of four great musicians”, writes Florian Bissig in the liner notes about the concert immortalised on this double CD, and, “It was a celebration that made one’s ears perk up…James Brandon Lewis’ saxophone sound seemed to radiate a quivering liveliness and an expressive urgency rarely heard before. The four musicians, for all their precision and refinement of interplay, seemed to be playing as if it were the last time.”

James Brandon Lewis - An UnRuly Manifesto (2019)  Music

Posted by delpotro at Jan. 5, 2022
James Brandon Lewis - An UnRuly Manifesto (2019)

James Brandon Lewis - An UnRuly Manifesto (2019)
EAC Rip | FLAC (tracks+log+.cue) | Covers included | 00:44:56 | 279 Mb
Avant-Garde Jazz, Modern Creative | Label: Relative Pitch Records

An Unruly Manifesto is an album dedicated to Charlie Haden & Ornette Coleman and Surrealism. Lewis describes this album as a call to action. “ Everyday is a chance to discover the truest version of your self and charge after that relentlessly”.

James Brandon Lewis Trio - Eye of I (2023)  Music

Posted by delpotro at March 15, 2023
James Brandon Lewis Trio - Eye of I (2023)

James Brandon Lewis Trio - Eye of I (2023)
EAC Rip | FLAC (tracks+log+.cue) - 289 Mb | MP3 CBR 320 kbps - 109 Mb | 00:47:28
Avant-Garde Jazz, Modern Creative, Spiritual Jazz | Label: ANTI- Records

"I come from the generation that went to school to learn music,” says Lewis, a self-described seeker and old soul of thirty-nine who did his undergrad at Howard University in Washington DC and earned his master’s at Cal Arts, where he studied with Charlie Haden and others. “What happens in that environment is everything becomes overly complicated. [After Jesup Wagon] I was aware about how inside my head I tend to get. I started thinking about the importance of breaking out of those thought patterns from school. At this point I have a kind of trained intuition, to know where stuff is supposed to go. I began to challenge that, and the more I did, the more I became obsessed with the basics.”
James Brandon Lewis - Days Of FreeMan (2015) [Official Digital Download]

James Brandon Lewis - Days Of FreeMan (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/48 kHz | Time - 62:39 minutes | 798 MB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front cover

Tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, along with bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma and drummer Rudy Royston, delivers a taut, street-smart set, rooted firmly in hip-hop ancestry yet crafted to honor the tenets of inspired jazz improvisation. References to venerated elders from diverse genres permeate both the music and Lewis’ written narrative, including shout-outs to historic hip-hop groups and rap-music forebears like A Tribe Called Quest, Digable Planets and Lee “Scratch” Perry. To make an even larger point about the grand scope of African-American heritage, interspersed throughout are recorded excerpts of Lewis’ grandmother, Pearl Lewis, ruminating on such topics as freedom, faith, family and the power of gospel music.
The Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis - The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis (2024)

The Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis - The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis (2024)
WEB FLAC (tracks) - 273 Mb | MP3 CBR 320 kbps - 107 Mb | 00:46:17
Jazz Fusion, Jazz Rock, Modern Creative | Label: Impulse! Records

On their Impulse! debut album, Washington DC’s experimental jazz punk triothe 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.
James Brandon Lewis Quartet - Code of Being (2021) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

James Brandon Lewis Quartet - Code of Being (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Front Cover & Digital Booklet | Time - 67:21 minutes | 2,18 GB
Avant-Garde Jazz, Modern Creative | Label: Intakt Records, Official Digital Download

The charismatic saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis is the musician of the moment in the broad field of contemporary jazz. With Code of Being, James Brandon Lewis now presents his second album. The debut CD Molecular, which Lewis recorded with his quartet in 2020 just a few months before Lockdown, was roundly acclaimed as one of the most exciting releases in 2020 (Intakt CD 350).
James Brandon Lewis - Days Of FreeMan (2015) [Official Digital Download]

James Brandon Lewis - Days Of FreeMan (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/48 kHz | Time - 62:39 minutes | 775 MB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front cover

Tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, along with bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma and drummer Rudy Royston, delivers a taut, street-smart set, rooted firmly in hip-hop ancestry yet crafted to honor the tenets of inspired jazz improvisation. References to venerated elders from diverse genres permeate both the music and Lewis’ written narrative, including shout-outs to historic hip-hop groups and rap-music forebears like A Tribe Called Quest, Digable Planets and Lee “Scratch” Perry. To make an even larger point about the grand scope of African-American heritage, interspersed throughout are recorded excerpts of Lewis’ grandmother, Pearl Lewis, ruminating on such topics as freedom, faith, family and the power of gospel music.

James Brandon Lewis - Jesup Wagon (2021)  Music

Posted by varrock at May 7, 2021
James Brandon Lewis - Jesup Wagon (2021)

James Brandon Lewis - Jesup Wagon (2021)
WEB FLAC (tracks) - 327 MB | Tracks: 7 | 51:11
Style: Jazz | Label: Tao Forms

Jesup Wagon is the astonishing new work from the fertile creative mind of ascendant tenor saxophonist-composer James Brandon Lewis, voted Rising Star Tenor Saxophonist in the 2020 DownBeat Magazine International Critic's Poll. On his ninth release he leads the Red Lily Quintet, an exceptional inter-generational ensemble assembled specifically for this project. The album speaks eloquently to the forever-evolving continuum of the jazz tradition. Essentially a collection of tone poems - or, as Duke Ellington might have called them, "tone parallels" - Duke being the instigator of this type of programmatic jazz.