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Citadelic festival 2023
MAY 26 - 21H MAIN STAGE
James Brandon Lewis 'Eye and I' Trio (US)
“A saxophonist who embodies and transcends tradition” (The New York Times)
James Brandon Lewis has become, in just over a decade, one of the most celebrated young artists in jazz — an artist who has carved a niche for his singular mixture of gospel, blues, and R&B with the incendiary saxophone explorations of John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and Sonny Rollins. His performance coincides with the release of his new ANTI Records recording, Eye and I. His Live Trio features electric bassist Josh Werner and drummer Chad Taylor.
In 2021, the saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis had a career breakthrough with his tenth album, The Jesup Wagon. Inspired by the mobile agricultural education efforts of inventor George Washington Carver, the song cycle was hailed by critics for its dreamlike mosaic of gospel, folk-blues and catcalling brass bands. It was named Album of the Year at Jazz Times and Downbeat and a bunch of international jazz magazines, and it established Lewis as one of the provocative musical voices of his generation.
Along the way, Lewis drew the attention of many improvising artists, most notably the saxophonist and jazz deity Sonny Rollins, who doesn’t offer effusive praise very often. Moved by Lewis’ deep, spirit-seeking sound, Rollins said “When I listen to you, I listen to Buddha, I listen to Confucius … I listen to the deeper meaning of life. You are keeping the world in balance.”
After the praise chorus quieted down, Lewis inevitably began to think about next moves. It was the waning moments of pandemic panic, and he knew this much: He was itching to play. He also knew that he wasn’t interested in undertaking another extra-musical research project like The Jesup Wagon. He took time to ruminate on the ten years he’d spent as a musician in New York City, and the experiences he had leading his own groups while seizing chances to mix it up with punk bands and hip-hop MCs and free jazz titans. He thought about the moments when he felt most alive. They shared a trait: They were not cerebral exercises in high-concept heaviness. They happened when he was loose, in the moment, running on pure visceral instinct.
“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.”
That sent Lewis on what became a thorough, revitalizing purge of his artistic trick bag. He cut out compositional complexities, focusing instead on earnest, sing-able melodies. He avoided some of the fancy jazz chords. He explored folk song themes like those he played with Mark Ribot on the stirring Songs of Resistance 1942-2018, which brought him to the attention of musicians outside of the jazz realm. Then Lewis meditated on the instrumental configuration best suited to bringing his new ideas to light. Rather than write for a large group, or even a horn section, he gravitated to a lean, unconventional power trio: Tenor sax, electric cello, and drums.
And he swapped the aesthetic manifestos he’d attached to previous albums (see An Unruly Manifesto) for a simple punk-band-in-the-basement credo: Chasing energy. Above all else. This process of stripping away led directly to Eye of I, Lewis’ bracing, sometimes haunting, arrestingly diverse Anti Records debut. It’s a record alive with the messy contrasts of life in the United States circa 2022 – dissonant one minute and graceful/prayerful the next; animated by anger and contention as well as the possibility of resolution; holding equal space for expressions of steadfast faith and wild spontaneous skronkage.
Ribot, a longtime admirer, advocated for ANTI- to sign Lewis, his impassioned message describing enthusiastically Lewis as a keeper of the legacy of John Coltrane: “James Brandon Lewis’ solos are like a jumbo jet. You need to give them plenty of runway space to take off and land. Because they’re huge, not just in terms of sound, chops, soul, ideas, energy, and originality, (although they have all these in abundance), but because they’re carrying a precious cargo: the living legacy of John Coltrane. I’m not talking about some skillful ‘young lion's’ reproduction of a historic jazz sound, but a young artist’s courage to take up the spiritual challenge—to channel what needs to be channeled now.”
OTHER CONCERTS MAY 26
with the marvelous support of De Vlaamse Gemeenschap and de Stad Gent
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