Music Monday: Some New and Some Not-So-New

There’s been so much good music out lately, that I’m kind of confused about where to start. 

This week, though, the arrival of a new James Brandon Lewis/Red Lily Quintet album forced my interest. I’ve been listening to For Mahalia, With Love (2023) all weekend and it feels every bit as accomplished and moving at this ensembles’ debut, Jesup Wagon. For Mahalia, With Love is a loose tribute to Mahalia Jackson and Lewis’s grandmother who introduced him to Jackson’s music. The album is in the great tradition of jazz music that delves deeply into not only the traditions’ of Black music, but also (and perhaps more importantly) the experience of Black music. In other words, the album is deep, soulful, and compelling. Kirk Knuffke and Lewis play with sensitivity and spontaneous elegance. William Parker’s bass and Chad Taylor’s drums are as solid as ever and with Chris Hoffman’s cello contributes a density of sound. It’s probably cliche to suggest that an album has a kind of spiritual grace to it (but who can deny this to some of Monk’s, Mingus’s, or Coltrane’s masterpieces), but there’s something almost ineffable to this album. In fact, I’m almost afraid to recommend it.  

I’ve been thinking a bit about Jackie McLean’s saxophone playing and wondering whether I hear some of his sound in James Brandon Lewis. Neither Lewis nor McLean have ever struck me as the most adventurous players, but they both command their instruments and manage to do work in ways that I find utterly remarkable. I know, that kind of banal generalization is the reserve for writers with either undeveloped ears or undeveloped vocabularies. I have both in spades.

So, I’ll stop and share McLean’s One Step Beyond from 1963 with Bobby Hutcherson on vibes, Grachan Moncur III on trombone, Tony Williams on drums, and Eddie Khan on bass. It’s fantastic (and deserves to be listened to alongside his next album Destination Out!) 

Finally, a bit of what my friend Sharon Carson calls “get out the door music” for a Monday morning: “One Love” played by Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy from 1997: