Live In Willisau (2020)

"Saxophonist James Brandon Lewis is steeped in gospel, schooled in jazz and released his debut album with Gerald Cleaver and William Parker in 2014. Drummer Chad Taylor is equally widely versed and came to notice with Marc Ribot's 2005 Spiritual Unity homage to free jazz icon Albert Ayler. Here they condense, reconstruct and explore a swathe of jazz history in a thrilling festival-finale performance from last year's (2019) Willisau Jazz Festival. The album opens with Lewis constructing an epic of growls, phonics and quarter-tone runs from the bare-bones theme of ‘Twenty Four’, a distant splice of John Coltrane's ‘Giant Steps’ and ‘26-2’ according to the sleeve. The Coltrane references continue with ‘Radiance’ expanding the melodic warmth of Coltrane's ‘Seraphic Light’ into visceral free jazz. A fine-tuned cover of Redman's ‘Willisee’ won Lewis and Taylor an encore, and confirmed that in direct comparison, they measure up." (JazzWise.com)