American saxophonist James Brandon Lewis belongs to the vanguard of New York avant-garde jazz. His music is rooted in gospel and blues and emerges on the foundations that
Albert Ayler and
John Coltrane once built with their free jazz. All the more striking, he now pays tribute to the gospel music of singer
Mahalia Jackson. Music that had a great impact on the black American community of the last
… century, Lewis himself writes in the cover. When his grandmother told him of a Jackson concert she attended, he himself mused, "Maybe it was the closest thing to hearing the voice of God. Not a word is sung on For Mahalia Jackson, but Lewis dives into such gospel traditions as Swing Low, Go Down Moses and Precious Lord on his instrument and with his Red Lily Quintet. This results in a spiritual free jazz album on which the quintet goes deep and deeper and as a collective does seem to want to give its own voice to God (MR).more
