Out of the noble line of
Sonny and Trane comes forth a new tenor titan. I love those saxophonists who
can conjure up images or take you with them on an exotic journey, but sometimes
you just want to have your ears pinned back by a bit of wildly expressed fury.
On Sunday lunchtime in Cheltenham you can go for roast beef and Yorkshires or
you can come to the Jazz Arena and let James Brandon Lewis physically rearrange
the entire contents of your skull. This isn’t intellectual, this is purely
physical.
The Trio wander on stage looking very friendly and amicable, take up their positions and it all explodes. An avalanche of rolling drums, even the cymbals sound like bombs supported by Werner’s hustling bass lines. Lewis, himself, is blowing long, loud notes and then some more frantic blowing forces the rhythm section to keep up. That, I believe, was Alicia.
A stuttering Latin-esque piece follows with a flurry of high-pitched split notes and scattering sax fragments (and I conclude that Mr Lewis has definitely had his Weetabix) My notes include the only expletive I have ever noted down at a concert along with ‘This is brilliant’ as Lewis beats us all into agreement. The next piece, a call to prayer with Arabic hints, opens with harmonic notes from the bass. We plunge into sheets of sound and the drummer digs in, his cymbals look like they’ve been tested in battle. I know how they feel. A drum solo builds up moments of tension and release with a cymbal crash. He speaks with two voices setting snares in conversation against kettle drums before he collapses the discussion into a series of runs and fills. His hard hitting is supported by the size of his sticks; Cleaver is wielding some serious furniture.
Next a four
square groove has Lewis blowing forcefully but melodically over the top,
repeating phrases before a series of interjections extend the space between the
tune’s melodic line with the drummer chopping down forests behind him. Werner’s
bass solo is full of funk and soul and slides. Lewis, now soft voiced, comes in
again, breathing low through the sax like Lester Young.
There is a warm and
welcoming tone to the tenor as it opens the next piece with the drums building
to a crescendo that stops and falls away behind the sax which takes off in a
complex, intense solo featuring frantic flurries of notes and wails. The drums
are rolling and pounding with great explosions of cymbal splashes; the bass
drives it all onwards before it all falls away to a romantic close. The
romantic mood carries into Mona Lisa. The
sax chuckles its way into a hint of Somewhere
Over the Rainbow and on into a passage of pure swinging bebop. They close
with a ballad after a plea from Lewis that we keep the music alive. The piece
itself is full of tragedy and ghostly cymbals.
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