James Brandon Lewis

James Brandon Lewis is a New York-based jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader whose playing combines the emotional power of gospel with modal, post-bop blues, and R&B. After first making his name in gospel music, Lewis detoured into jazz, and issued 2014's Divine Travels and 2015's Days of Freeman. In 2020, the James Brandon Lewis Quartet issued Molecular and followed it a year later with Code of Being and Jesup Wagon with Red Lily Quartet. In 2023, Eye of I appeared on Anti-, and he re-teamed with Red Lily Quintet to record For Mahalia, With Love the same year. In 2024, Lewis collaborated with experimental rock trio the Messthetics and released Transfiguration with his quartet. He issued the improvised Apple Cores on Anti- in February 2025, and he followed it in May with the JBLQ offering Abstraction Is Deliverance. His second LP with the Messthetics, Deface the Currency, arrived in 2026.