James Brandon Lewis / James Brandon Lewis & Chad Taylor
Brooklyn, NY
Grant amount: $7,850
Performances
2220 Arts + Archives. Los Angeles, CA. 2/24/2022
PDX Jazz Festival | Jack London Revue. Portland, OR. 2/25/2022
Earshot Jazz Festival | The Chapel Lounge. Seattle, WA. 2/26/2022
About the Artist
James Brandon Lewis is a critically-acclaimed composer, saxophonist, and writer. He has received accolades from NPR, The ASCAP Foundation, MacDowell Residencies, and The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. He has been described as “a saxophonist who embodies and transcends tradition” by The New York Times, and “a promising young talent having listened to the elders” by jazz legend Sonny Rollins. James Brandon Lewis has balanced a deep, gospel-informed spirituality with a style described as “Free-Jazz abandon and hard-hitting funk-meets-hip-hop underpinning” by Rolling Stone Magazine. Lewis created Molecular Systematic Music in 2011 under a different moniker, it describes a two-fold approach to music, braiding together the fundamentals of music theory with the ideas of molecular biology in the context of DNA. While not a molecular biologist, the ideas he expresses deploy the vocabulary of molecular biology as useful metaphors, while exploring new possibilities and relationships across disciplines. He has released several critically-acclaimed albums, most recently, the highly touted Jesup Wagon and tours, internationally leading several ensembles, and is a member and co-founder of American Book Award winning ensemble, Heroes Are Gang Leaders. James was recently voted Rising Star Tenor Saxophonist by Downbeat Magazine’s 2020s International Critics poll. He attended Howard University and received his M.F.A from the California Institute of the Arts.