JAMES BRANDON LEWIS QUARTET with Aruán Ortiz, Brad Jones and Chad Taylor - ABSTRACTION IS DELIVERANCE (INTAKT RECORDS) (2025)

This is highly-rated tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis’s fifth album with his quartet. It is described somewhat enigmatically as “a wonderful ballad album that isn’t one” and a “profound sense for lyrical melodies, tonal concision and dynamics”. So, let’s have a listen!

‘Ware’ is dedicated to David S. Ware, another jazz saxophonist and band leader who died in 2012. Piano chords (Aruán Ortiz), cymbals and drum rolls (Chad Taylor) and a double bass line (Brad Jones) precede a silky sax line; a mazy piano break and sax solo follow before a reiteration of the main melody. ‘Per 7’ starts with wistful, ‘late night’ sax, a balladic and contemplative piece. ‘Even the Sparrow’ is another fairly quiet and reflective piece. ‘Remember Rosalind’ starts with bass and piano, rippling up and down and gliding across the keyboard with occasional sax interventions eventually picking out a somewhat doleful counterpoint melody which will haunt you in the nicest possible way. The title track has piano and cymbals (the drummer has an exquisitely light touch), the piano providing some dramatic notes and soloing, the bass steady, a classical touch, the sax entering early, developing another memorable melody line, becoming more abstract and free-form as the band shake off the shackles and let loose, the sax holding tenaciously onto a phrase at one point before reprising the introductory theme. What immediately follows continues in similar vein; the track entitled ‘Mr Crick’ featuring a sinuous sax melody and a double bass solo. Mal Waldron’s ‘Left Alone’ (the only cover) has a touch of the blues, again the sax melody has a classic touch about it, with some extended piano soloing, bowed bass and restrained empathic drums. ‘Polaris’ ends this most enjoyable album gracefully: subtlety is key, nothing sounds forced or overworked, no musician is over dominant.

It is hard to put into words what a tight and accomplished unit James Brandon Lewis’s quartet is, with first class compositions, arrangements, executed to perfection; a definite must for jazz lovers of all persuasions.