Over thirty years ago, I read a review of a new album by Richard Thompson. The first sentence was “ho hum, another brilliant album.” Facetious, sure, but I got the point: it’s easy to take someone of exceptionally high talent for granted, with the implication being it’s dangerous to do so.
So you’ll hopefully pardon me for thinking the same thing on my first spin of Abstraction is Deliverance, the new album from the James Brandon Lewis Quartet. But when you have an artist this confident, this dedicated, this visionary, it’s hard not to expect excellence every time. So it is with the Quartet’s fifth album together. Though the title might lead us to believe otherwise, Abstraction is less frenetic than the recent work by this band – less prone to finding the envelope and ramming it with their shoulders. Despite being named after the late, great free jazz titan David S. Ware, “Ware” drifts rather than whirls, letting us catch up to it as Lewis lets soul flow delicately and freely from his alto. Aided and abetted by loyal musicians Aruán Ortiz on piano (the MVP here), Brad Jones on bass, and Chad Taylor on drums, “Remember Rosalind” and “Multicellular Beings” evoke the same spirit – languid, luscious, as inclined to drip honey as to wield steel.
But before you think that makes Abstraction Lewis’ ballad album, the title track comes along. It begins that way, sure – all sweet saxophone and atmospheric accompaniment. But then it mutates, becoming both more melodic and more aggressive, the instrumentalists locking in and moving out – the sound of a group of players all connected to the same spine. “Mr. Crick” also switches gears like a master driver, smoothly moving from swinging hard bop to jittery post bop and back, so subtly that just as you realize what’s happened the song is back to where it started. “Left Alone” stands as the epitome of this approach, exploring all the different ways one can improvise around a tango in nine-and-a-half minutes.
So, yeah – another brilliant Lewis album, with all the passion, grace, and skill we’ve come to expect from this exceptional artist and his stalwart crew. Few artists in any genre are as adept at exceeding expectations as James Brandon Lewis, and Abstraction is Deliverance is the proof.
