{"id":792790,"date":"2019-02-06T13:50:43","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T20:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=790305"},"modified":"2019-02-06T13:50:43","modified_gmt":"2019-02-06T20:50:43","slug":"song-you-need-to-know-james-brandon-lewis-sir-real-denard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/song-you-need-to-know-james-brandon-lewis-sir-real-denard\/","title":{"rendered":"Song You Need to Know: James Brandon Lewis, \u2018Sir Real Denard\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

There\u2019s no easy shorthand for James Brandon Lewis\u2019 musical M.O. Ever since his early releases \u2014 2010\u2019s Moments<\/em>, 2014\u2019s Divine Travels<\/em> \u2014 the saxophonist has balanced a deep, gospel-informed spirituality with free-jazz<\/a> abandon and hard-hitting funk-meets\u2013hip-hop underpinnings.<\/p>\n

\u201cSir Real Denard,\u201d a track from his new album An UnRuly Manifesto<\/em><\/a>, shows how adept he\u2019s become at bridging different approaches. On one hand, it\u2019s a fierce rhythmic workout driven by the tireless bass-drums team of Luke Stewart and drummer Warren \u201cTrae\u201d Crudup III, both of whom also appeared on Lewis\u2019 2016 effort\u00a0No Filter<\/em>; on the other, it\u2019s a platform for some heady, avant-leaning improv from the leader, guitarist Anthony Pirog (who turned up on a couple No Filter<\/em> tracks and also works with Fugazi offshoot the Messthetics<\/a>) and trumpeter Jaimie Branch<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The piece begins with a simple two-note riff, layered over Crudup\u2019s fleet, Stubblefield<\/a>\/Starks<\/a>-esque beat. One by one, the members of the band take their turn at the fore, contrasting propulsive thrust with abstract grit. Stewart\u2019s bass feature builds from crisp, in-the-pocket figures to weird squiggles of sound, while Pirog\u2019s solo sounds like a nimble shred episode being swallowed up by a cloud of psychedelic noise. Branch offers up a fierce attack marked by static-y rasps, leading into Lewis\u2019 own powerhouse feature, which combines R&B muscle with bebop agility. Eventually, all the players swirl their sounds together, hinting at and playing off the track\u2019s central groove.<\/p>\n

Like Radiant Imprints<\/em> \u2014 Lewis\u2019 outstanding 2018 duo album<\/a> with percussionist Chad Taylor, which featured reinterpretations of John Coltrane\u2019s work \u2014 An UnRuly Manifesto<\/em> looks to the past for inspiration. Lewis writes on Bandcamp<\/a> that it\u2019s \u201can album dedicated to Charlie Haden & Ornette Coleman and Surrealism.\u201d \u201cSir Real Denard\u201d takes its title from one of Coleman\u2019s given names (the musician was born Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman) and a play on the word \u201csurreal,\u201d a nod to Coleman\u2019s involvement in the 1982 surrealist writing anthology Free Spirits: Annals of the Insurgent Imagination<\/em><\/a>. Eminent bassist and frequent Coleman collaborator Haden taught Lewis at Cal Arts.<\/p>\n

But even a listener familiar with Coleman\u2019s own long-running funk-oriented project Prime Time<\/a>, whose sometime bassist Jamaladeen Tacuma appeared on Lewis\u2019 2015 album Days of FreeMan<\/em><\/a>, wouldn\u2019t be likely to peg this as an overt homage. As \u201cSir Real Denard\u201d shows, Lewis\u2019 aesthetic, like those of his heroes, contains multitudes.<\/p>\n

Though it\u2019s not stated overtly, An UnRuly Manifesto<\/em> also honors another late figure: Mike Panico, co-owner of Relative Pitch<\/a>, the Brooklyn label that released the album. Tragically, Panico committed suicide<\/a> in October 2018, and Manifesto<\/em> was one of the last projects he had worked on along with his label partner Kevin Reilly.<\/p>\n

\u201cMike Panico believed in the power of music,\u201d Lewis tells Rolling Stone<\/em> in an e-mail. \u201cHe was super excited about this record and felt like it could touch many lives. His enthusiasm for music was intoxicating and that made me want to work with him. This is one of the last records he was able to put out, and for that I am thankful he believed, but the music is also a reminder of how beautiful he was as a person.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s no easy shorthand for James Brandon Lewis\u2019 musical M.O. Ever since his early releases \u2014 2010\u2019s Moments, 2014\u2019s Divine Travels \u2014 the saxophonist has balanced a deep, gospel-informed spirituality with free-jazz abandon and hard-hitting funk-meets\u2013hip-hop underpinnings. \u201cSir Real Denard,\u201d a track from his new album An UnRuly Manifesto, shows how adept he\u2019s become at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-792790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-13 18:31:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}