Home » Jazz Musicians » Branden James Lewis

Branden James Lewis

Biography
Articles

Preservation Hall’s Grammy-nominated trumpet player, Branden Lewis, is surprisingly modest. He beams with bravado on stage but, in conversation, he’ll tell you about what he cooked for dinner, what he’s been listening to lately and what his friends have accomplished far before he’ll open up about himself. It is not that he isn’t proud of having performed with Stevie Wonder, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Arcade Fire, Chance the Rapper, Jon Batiste, Reggie Watts, Dave Matthews, Corinne Bailey Rae, the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra and Foo Fighters. It’s just that those experiences are lagniappe to having a day job that allows him to do what he loves to do most. — Offbeat magazine (New Orleans)

Billie Davies: Retrospectives (In The Key Of Jazz)

Read "Retrospectives (In The Key Of Jazz)" reviewed by La-Faithia White

by La-Faithia White
August 23, 2025

Retrospectives (In The Key of Jazz) showcases a body of work by drummer Billie Davies that was created over a six year period. The musicians answered her call, recording albums and performing on her acoustic or hybrid drum set from 2012 to 2018. These pieces of music have never been released and are all improvisations that happened during rehearsals and/or performances in between or leading up to her album projects in Hollywood and New Orleans. “Hollywood Boulevard From ...

Album Review

Billie Davies: Hand In Hand In The Hand Of The Moon

Read "Hand In Hand In The Hand Of The Moon" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
May 24, 2016

Free drummer Billie Davies calls Hand In Hand In The Hand Of The Moon a symphony, which implies composition, larger planned structures, etc. Nothing like that is here, as the music was improvised and recorded in one session. However, this music is not just a free session of highly intuitive and sensitive players; it has a reason for being, and that reason is the intersection of the life paths of two artists working in different media -Davies, a musician and ...

Album Review

Billie Davies: Hand In Hand In The Hand Of The Moon

Read "Hand In Hand In The Hand Of The Moon" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
October 28, 2015

Hand In Hand In The Hand Of The Moon is a heartfelt homage to the artist Serge Vandercam (1924-2005) whose paintings, depicted on the inside CD cover, originally inspired this suite of collaborative improvisations. Initially the inspiration drew from a period of three days of the full moon in 1995 when the artist was influenced by the drummer's playing. For this recording in 2015, following a 20 year gestation period, the painting corresponding to each title was hanging on a ...