"Saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis possesses an inspiring energy. His deep curiosity and the thrill he gets from discovery are crucial facets of his personality, and qualities that guide his art. Over the last half-decade he's emerged as one of the most exciting figures in jazz and improvised music, a voracious listener who rejects stylistic hierarchies and one that has feverishly explored new ideas and embraced fresh motivations with every new project.

Inspired by molecular biology James Brandon develops a special system for a surprising and beautiful music with his Quartet with drummer Chad Taylor, pianist Aruán Ortiz, and bassist Brad Jones. He has taken the idea of a "Molecular Systematic Music" to heart in the formulation of the compositions featured on the stunning debut album by this quartet.

James Brandon Lewis says: "I wrote out everything, but the reason I feel like the music is still free is because the lines dictate the harmonic information. With this band the music is going to lift off the page." Listen to the recordings: The James Brandon Lewis Quartet takes off with an exuberant joy of playing and that rhythmic intensity and thematic beauty that is rooted in the jazz tradition."-Intakt

"James Brandon Lewis' molecular systematic music is an unfolding phenomenon. It begins with the tenor saxophonist's self-directed study of molecular biology, an investigation into the building blocks of life itself. That study has inspired an abstraction of structural concepts into a book of tunes, which he then hands over to his Quartet.

Molecular systemic music doesn't necessarily result in music that overtly follows double helix pathways, or manifests a Cecil Taylor-like cellular organization. Its processes are invisible to the casual listener, and it's entirely possible to relate to molecular systemic music at the more widely accessible levels of melody, rhythm, energy and emotion. Lewis' background includes lengthy stints playing church music; he knows all about fostering an affective connection with people who aren't concerned his with technique and methodology. But the quartet does use this system to make music that maintains a high level of cohesion while providing room for its musicians to manifest their dialogic and improvisational skills that delivers the interactive charge that draws listeners to jazz.

That charge pulses throughout MSM Live. Recorded after a COVID-imposed layoff in Zurich, Switzerland, it is the third album by Lewis, pianist Aruán Ortiz, bassist Brad Jones, and drummer Chad Taylor, following two studio recordings that were also released by Intakt Records (it seems that Lewis likes to find homes for certain of his projects, and then let them grow there). That means that the energy here is fueled by all the emotions stirred by an overdue reunion. Spread across two CDs, one gets to hear the musicians sparking ideas back and forth across chasms of open space in almost synaptic fashion. On "Cesaire," a tune named for a Haitian poet, Ortiz and Taylor toss dizzying keyboard runs and correspondingly intricate percussion sequences in each other's direction. The exchange is not so much a call and response as an overlapping conversation, enacted while Jones lucks pithy figures that seem to complete both their phrases. Lewis cuts through their turbulent stream of sound, channeling the density of sheets-of-sound era Coltrane.

A listener hearing this group for the first time will pick up certain antecedents. There's Coltrane, of course and a bit of the David S. Ware Quartet's layered wall of sound. But the musicians' individual characters soon come into play. Ortiz applies his conservatory-schooled facility with classical material to quicksilver dynamic shifts, and introduces judicious dashes of Cuban vernacular. Jones and Taylor have been part of his band, as well this quartet; as a unit, they toggle easily between dense, collective creation and conventionally supportive, figure-and-ground relationships, such as Jones' fluent extended solo on the ballad, "Loverly." They aren't just running their own show behind the boss's back, though. They're closely attuned to the requirements of Lewis's music, as evidenced by their playing on "Neosha," where they realize an exquisitely braided framework the saxophonist's bold, imploring melody, and the darting elaborations that follow."-Bill Meyer, Dusted Magazine