Eye of I

Many jazz fans first encountered the deeply expressive music of saxophonist/composer James Brandon Lewis on 2014s Divine Travels in the company of pianist Matthew Shipp, bassist William Parker, and drummer Gerald Cleaver. Since then, hes released a slew of fascinating projects, including his award-winning breakthrough, 2021s Jesup Wagon, a carefully conceived, artfully executed, musically diverse investigation of George Washington Carvers life and achievements. Eye of I, his follow-up and Anti- debut, is performed by the core trio of Lewis on tenor sax, Christopher Hoffman on cello and pedals, and Max Jaffe on drums. These 11 tunes all offer kinetic immediacy. They reveal Lewis compositional skill, articulated across tense balladry, muscular post-bop, spacey gospel, blues, and modal and spiritual jazz, balanced by unruly sonics, textured dissonance, and a profound lyric sensibility. The brief, angular, almost funky 44-second opener "Foreground" sounds like a jet readying for takeoff. Its followed by a devastating, beautiful read of Donny Hathaways soul-gospel classic "Someday Well All Be Free." Kirk Knuffke guests on cornet, playing twinned and responsorial lines to Lewis horn as Hoffmans electronically distorted cello rumbles like an electric guitar and Jaffes martial drum kit underscores its emotionally open feel without forsaking its musicality. "The Blues Still Blossoms" isnt like any other blues. Lewis investigates a short, repetitive nursery rhyme-esque melody (think Ornette Coleman), inverting and expanding notes in call and response with the rhythm section as they slip the 12-bar frame. The title track spends its first minute with a distorted, funereal cello over rumbling, constantly rolling tom-toms. When Lewis enters -- in full wail -- one can hear the ghosts of Albert Ayler and John Coltrane in his playing. "Womb Water" is an innovative, tonally compelling adaptation of Cecil Taylors "Womb Waters Scent of the Burning Armadillo Shell" from 1984s Winged Serpent (Sliding Quadrants), followed by another dissonant blowing interlude ("Background") that introduces the gorgeous "Send Seraphic Beings," a hip post-bop stroller. Lewis reaches into his horns lower register, cycles the melody, and solos on an entirely different plane as the rhythm section dances and swings with a gentle Latin groove. Knuffke assists again on "Even the Sparrow," a jazz-gospel dirge with ambitious interaction between the horns as pedaled cello creates rhapsodic harmonies in the backdrop. On closer "Fear Not," Lewis trio plays alongside Washington, D.C. post-punk trio the Messthetics, featuring former Fugazi members Joe Lally (bass) and Brendan Canty (drums) with renowned jazz-rock guitarist Anthony Pirog. Lewis and Hoffman trade lines amidst the plodding force of two drummers. Pirogs guitar is all fuzz and bleat, and its entwined with electric bass. Lewis tenor goes right at Pirog and the drummers. His circular theme roils and is propelled to become a headbanger, wedding unhinged anthemic melody to unsettling dynamic and tonal chaos before finding assonant resolution. Eye of I showcases the immediacy and range in Lewis musical imagination in composition, improvisation, and communication with a freer, more immediately instinctive persona on full display. All killer, no filler. ~ Thom Jurek