James Brandon Lewis' Red Lily Quintet 28-11-24

do 28 nov '24

NY power house with ode to a gospel icon

After their groundbreaking and much-discussed Jesup Wagon (2021), award-winning American tenor saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis is back with his Red Lily Quintet. On the powerful For Mahalia, With Love, he reinterprets songs by a true gospel icon whose voice galvanized a nation.

Where Lewis used his transformative talents to revive Renaissance man George Washington Carver on Jesup Wagon, here the saxophonist does the same for force of nature Mahalia Jackson.

This time it's personal, as Lewis grew up on her music, nurtured by a grandmother who received Mahalia's singing like a thunderclap. Much more than a tribute, this work is "really a three-way conversation between Mahalia, my grandmother, and me.

Red Lily Quintet
Kirk Knuffke (cornet), James Brandon Lewis (tenorsax), Tomeka Reid (cello), Silvia Bolognesi (bas), Chad Taylor (drums)

About Mahalia's melodies

Lewis not only delivers the classic songs any fan of Jackson would want to hear, he also incorporates aspects of her phrasing and embellishments into his own playing.

Mahalia Jackson's music was not just for Sundays. Generations have used her messages to guide daily life decisions. Lewis treats them with the intimate familiarity of someone raised in that tradition.

At the same time, he also approaches them as a jazz musician who understands that abstraction and reinterpretation are the essence of his art. The gospel melodies serve as raw material for rigorous improvisation and creative rearrangement, balancing their potential for spiritual intensity with their dexterity as springboards for spontaneous creation in a way that might remind one of Charles Mingus.

(Based on a text by Bill Meyer on Magnetmagazine.com)