The line dividing modern jazz and punk rock — if one ever really existed — was officially mowed down a year ago at Club Café. James Brandon Lewis, one of the jazz genre’s most imaginative tenor saxophonists, took the stage with The Messthetics, a group that includes Joe Lally (bass) and Brendan Canty (drums), once the rhythm section of punk legends Fugazi. Over steady, driving grooves, Lewis and guitarist Anthony Pirog bridged the gap between visceral noise and passionate harmonic wails.
It wasn’t the first time punks played jazz. It wasn’t even the first Pittsburgh visit for this group. But experiencing the interactions of players from both sides of the musical fence, fresh after releasing an album on the heralded Impulse! label, made the evening feel monumental.
But Lewis doesn’t see music in hyperbolic extremes. To him, all the music is connected.
“If you’re curious, the music and the collaborations will happen, regardless of the genre,” he tells Pittsburgh City Paper. “I don’t think in genre. I think genre has its place for those who need a guide. I just lead with my curiosity. For me, it was just natural because … in the music, I kept wanting more energy, more sound, more rawness. So I thought that was a natural pairing.”
Lewis will appear at City of Asylum on Thu., May 22, as part of the venue’s Jazz Poetry Month music series. This appearance, his fifth year as the event’s headliner, promises a “sneak peek” of his next project: a suite of songs honoring American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and bandleader Eric Dolphy.
The evening will feature poetry collaborations with former Allegheny County Poet Laureate Doralee Brooks, City of Asylum’s first-ever Writer-in-Residence, and Huang Xiang, described as a driving force behind Jazz Poetry Month and “one of the earliest and most prolific liberal poets and writers in the ‘underground literature’ scene.”
His collaboration with The Messthetics represents just one of Lewis’s musical projects. He has worked in several duos, trios, and quartets, often with drummer Chad Taylor, now the Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. A few days before he spoke to City Paper, Lewis received a Doctorate of Philosophy and Creativity from Rowan University in New Jersey. Elements of all these experiences will likely come into play during his latest Pittsburgh visit.
Like many improvisational musicians, Lewis believes the music guides the performer. At a previous City of Asylum show, he told the audience, “I am a vessel,” something he still believes.
“You think you’re in charge of music. We’re really not, actually,” he says. “We attempt to control it, and sometimes melodies come quite naturally to me. I don’t always feel comfortable saying that I composed it. When it feels natural, it almost feels like a divine nature.”
His doctorate covers molecular systematic music, his original and visual form of musical notation, with a multi-disciplinary focus showing how the influence of poetry, art, and science can impact the creative encounters for a composer. Lewis says he felt like a scientist who had time to experiment, something he sees in jazz artists that preceded him.
“So many musicians, the Coltranes, the Ornette Colemans, there’s a way that they’re thinking about music,” he says, “They’re not just playing for the sake of playing. They’re trying to reach for a deeper meaning.”
His work has found inspiration beyond the realm of jazz, too. Jesup Wagon, Lewis’ 2021 album with his Red Lilly Quintet, topped polls that year for the way it channeled the life of scientist George Washington Carver into music that combined swirling grooves and complex, energetic blowing. Two years later, the same group saluted Mahalia Jackson, considered the First Lady of Gospel, with the passionate For Mahalia, With Love. They deftly balanced the source material’s spirit with the equally unrestrained passion of free jazz.
The quintet Lewis brings to City of Asylum came together when he was asked to participate in last year’s Eric Dolphy Festival at New York’s New School. Their instrumentation of reeds (Lewis), cornet (Kirk Knuffke), vibraphone (Patricia Brennan), bass (Latrobe native Chris Lightcap), and drums (Taylor) acknowledges the lineup heard on Dolphy albums like Out to Lunch, now regarded as a classic for its bold compositions and unique perspectives on improvisation.
But don’t expect a pure tribute to the late reedmaster.
“The world doesn’t need me to interpret Dolphy. Dolphy’s already done Dolphy,” he says. “But I can be inspired by him.”
Like the Carver and Jackson projects, Lewis took a deep dive into Dolphy’s life, investigating the multi-reedist’s original approaches to composition and scales. Like his doctoral work, Lewis believes this research provides “a lot of different things to use as springboards to develop melodies. Musicians are giving meaning to music,” Lewis says. “It’s imbued with life experiences.”
Lewis pauses and puts it in simpler terms. “You can’t play about love if you’ve never experienced it. What would that sound like? It’d sound like you weren’t in love,” he says, with a laugh.
Jazz Poetry 2025: James Brandon Lewis Quintet with Doralee Brooks and Huang Xiang. 8 p.m. Thu., May 22. City of Asylum. 40 W. North Ave., North Side. Free. Reservation required. Livestream available. cityofasylum.org/jazz-poetry-month-2025
This article appears in May 14-20, 2025.
