For Mahalia, With Love

For Mahalia, With Love the highly anticipated new album by tenor saxophonist-composer James Brandon Lewis & his Red Lily Quintet, following on their poll-sweeping Jesup Wagon reimagines songs made famous by the gospel icon who galvanized a nation with her voice.Whereas Lewis used his transformative talents to newly illuminate renaissance man George Washington Carver on Jesup Wagon, the saxophonist does the same here for gospel-music force of nature Mahalia Jackson. And this time it's personal, because Lewis lived her music growing up, nurtured by a grandmother who had received Mahalias singing like a bolt from above. Much more than a tribute, this work is really a three-way conversation between Mahalia, my grandmother and me. The challenge was to turn these songs into jazz, the 21st century variety. What James and the band [ William Parker-bass, Chad Taylor-drums, Kirk Knuffke-cornet, Chris Hoffman-cello ] conjure with this music is miraculous.