JAZZ
BY ANDY COWAN
James Brandon Lewis
★★★★
Eye Of I
ANTI-. CD/DL/LP
After 2021 breakthrough, New York tenor saxophonist shifts gears with unusual power trio.
Hymned by Sonny Rollins after 2021’s Jesup Wagon, a layered tribute to George Washington Carver, Lewis cuts loose from his conceptualist moorings for a stripped-back set defined by memorable melodies and thrusting performances. Whether refracting short phrases à la Rollins (the filmic Send Seraphic Beings), sending quavering saxes flailing in different directions (Donny Hathaway cover Someday We’ll All Be Free) or letting his fat-toned sound scroll through the emotions (the meditative Within You Are Answers), Lewis hits peak saxophone artistry here, beautifully offset by cellist Chris Hoffman and drummer Max Jaffe’s minimalist backings and a stirring link-up with Washington DC’s jazzy noiseniks The Messthetics (finale Fear Not). It makes for a mix of tender spirituality and free-jazz wildness, where emotion and ferocious technique combine.