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James Brandon Lewis: For Mahalia With Love (Expanded Edition)
by Stefano Merighi
La musica di James Brandon Lewis è potente, assertiva, trascinante. Ma rivela talvolta, sotto lo strato di forza, una sottile e affascinante vulnerabilità emotiva, che rende ancora più ricco il suo discorso compositivo e solistico. Come nel caso di questo scintillante omaggio al mondo espressivo di Mahalia Jackson, che si realizza attraverso memorie familiari, quelle della nonna che ha trasmesso a James questa passione tuttora bruciante. Lewis è una delle voci più convincenti del jazz contemporaneo che non ...
read moreAngelica Sanchez - Chad Taylor: A Monster Is Just An Animal You Haven't Met Yet
by Glenn Astarita
Angelica Sanchez and Chad Taylor's collaboration on the album A Monster is Just an Animal You Haven't Met Yet is a serendipitous blend of jazz's past and future wrapped in a package so enigmatic that it might as well come with its own set of riddles. The duo, comprising Sanchez's deft piano work and Taylor's percussive wizardry, crafts a sonic landscape as unpredictable as a weather forecast in the Bermuda Triangle.From the first note it is evident that ...
read moreJames Brandon Lewis: For Mahalia With Love (Expanded Edition)
by Chris May
Not since Oded Tzur's Isabela (ECM, 2022) has a comparably exalted tenor saxophone-led album come along, not until For Mahalia, With Love. Vaultingly great jazz and deep solace for the soul, For Mahalia, With Love was released in late 2023. An annual cycle for albums of this quality is actually a sufficiency, for there is enough in both these, and those that preceded them, to last a listener a lifetime. File next to John Coltrane's Crescent (Impulse!, 1964) and Albert ...
read moreJames Brandon Lewis / Red Lily Quintet: For Mahalia, With Love
by Pat Youngspiel
Moving on chronologically from George Washington Carver--the African-American musician and influential agricultural scientist to whom James Brandon Lewis' previous recording with the Red Lily Quintet, Jesup Wagon (Tao Forms 2021), was dedicated--For Mahalia, With Love continues the pattern of paying homage to influential Afro-Americans who, in their own way, changed the course of history. This album's dedicatee is the early gospel queen Mahalia Jackson, whose seminal performances lit a spark in the saxophonist's grandmother; she in turn carried the spark ...
read moreJames Brandon Lewis: For Mahalia With Love
by Jerome Wilson
Tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis has been establishing himself in various contexts for the last few years, but his main focus lately has been on his Red Lily Quintet. Their first album, Jesup Wagon, (TAO Forms, 2021), was dedicated to African-American scientist, George Washington Carver. On their 2023 release, the group's music focuses on the work of the legendary gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson. This tribute takes the form of interpretations of familiar spirituals Jackson often sang. The gospel-derived ...
read moreJames Brandon Lewis Red Lily Quintet: For Mahalia With Love
by John Sharpe
The combination of James Brandon Lewis' impassioned tenor saxophone and songs associated with gospel singer and Civil Rights activist Mahalia Jackson is a match made in heaven. On For Mahalia, With Love by his Red Lily Quintet, Lewis retains the crack squad which made Jesup Wagon (Tao Forms, 2021) a success. Even though Lewis has a proven knack for crafting an affecting melody, he has chosen well as this repertoire has not only stood the test of time, but is ...
read moreJaimie Branch: Fly Or Die Fly Or Die Fly Or Die ((World War))
by Chris May
As the malign forces of Amerikkka gather for their 2024 assault on truth, justice and democracy, an assault from which, if it is successful, there may be no peaceable reversal available four years down the line, the American jazz world should hang its head in shame. Denunciations of and opposition to the rise of domestic neo-fascism have been mostly confined to rock and hip hop. In jazz, with some noble exceptions, it has been business as usual. Now, in autumn ...
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