James Brandon Lewis Quartet

Putting an individual stamp on a common jazz grouping, tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis and his quartet of pianist Aruán Ortiz, bassist Brad Jones and drummer Chad Taylor stretch the configuration’s parameters, but maintain steadying cadences that balance exploratory flights.Backed buy bass pops, supple percussion chops and keyboard dynamics, like John Coltrane before him, Lewis is free to open up improvisations that undulate and advance to reed cadenzas that roar, ripple and reverberate into split tones and harsh smears. Yet no matter how many textures he crams into his solos, as on the session defining “Per 6”, other players’ timbres are there not to harness invention, but to mix tradition with transfiguration. Ortiz outlines melodies as often as his modal time suspensions or rhythmic note sprinkles impressively challenge the saxophonist’s pivots to double-tonged altissimo on the balladic “Trinity Of Creative Self” or to preaching glossolalia on the intense “Empirical Perception”.

Never exceeding tasteful boundaries, Lewis’ saxophone control means that his onomatopoeic cries, bites and peeps are harmonized as well as transformative. He harmonizes with the others throughout, constantly returns to the theme by tunes’ conclusions and somewhat manages to quote “Rhapsody in Blue” during his solo on the title track. Transfiguration is the band’s third outing, each of which is sturdier and tighter and more coordinated than the previous one. If this trend continues this may become the most significant jazz quartet of the beginning of the 21^st Century.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1.Transfiguration 2. Trinity Of Creative Self 3. Swerve 4. Per 6 5. Black Apollo 6. Empirical Perception 7. Triptych 8. Elan Vital

Personnel: James Brandon Lewis (tenor saxophone); Aruán Ortiz (piano); Brad Jones (bass) and Chad Taylor (drums)

–for The Whole Note May-June 2024