Apple Cores is the latest full-length album from New York tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, “one of the fiercest sounds in jazz today” (The Guardian) with a “penchant for unbound exploration” (Pitchfork). Informed by the rhythms and textures of hip-hop and funk while remaining rooted in jazz, James Brandon Lewis Trio’s Apple Cores was recorded with Chad Taylor (drums/mbira) and Josh Werner (bass/guitar). The recording was a collective compositional process that happened over the course of two intense, entirely improvised sessions.
“If you don’t spend time with your band, you’re not going to really trust that moment,” Lewis says. “I think we’ve spent enough time together to where we can do that. I’ve been playing Chad for like 10 years, so that’s like water right there and me and Josh have been playing together since like 2018.”
The album takes its name and intention from the column that poet and jazz theorist Amiri Baraka wrote for DownBeat in the 1960s. “I was first exposed to Amiri Baraka at Howard University [also Baraka’s alma mater],” says Lewis. “Blues People [Baraka’s groundbreaking 1963 study of Black American music], was required reading. I’m always in constant dialogue with his work.”
In addition to Baraka, the influence of another jazz giant looms mightily over Apple Cores: trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist, Don Cherry. In a testament to Cherry’s influence over the music that the trio is playing, Lewis designed each song title as a cryptogram of sorts, making subtle references to Cherry’s life and music.
“The record itself is a nod to Amiri but mainly a nod to Don Cherry, using Amiri as a branch to really get the conversation going,” Lewis explains. “It’s not a tribute in the sense that we’re playing Don Cherry compositions, but that the music is commenting on his musical curiosity.” It’s fitting that Lewis would explore Cherry’s music in this way, as he has paid tribute to him in the past. “This album also picks up the conversation where my 2015 album Days of FreeMan left off. I covered a Don Cherry piece “Bamako Love” from his 1985 album Home Boy (Sister Out). That album exposed me to Don’s risk-taking with his attempts to rap.”
Apple Cores opens with “Apple Cores #1”, a plucky, head-nodding jam that acts as a bridge where hip-hop, bebop, and the avant-garde meet. Werner and Taylor play in lockstep, setting up a foundation for Lewis’ soaring, piercing melody. On “Prince Eugene,” a hazy ballad that combines a dub-reggae bassline and drums with a Zimbabwean mbira, Lewis’ saxophone sings and guides us through the tune’s heavy, minimal groove. Midway through the album, “Remember Brooklyn & Moki” conjures a dark, atmospheric tone as the band pays tribute to Don Cherry’s wife, the Swedish interdisciplinary artist, Moki Cherry, and one of Don’s most beloved albums, 1969’s Where Is Brooklyn?.
The nimble, pulsating “Five Spots to Caravan” is a multi-layered reference to Don Cherry’s creative arc and travels as a musician. It nods to New York’s famed Five Spot where Ornette Coleman made his New York City debut in the fall of 1959 alongside Cherry. Also joined by the drummer Billy Higgins and Charlie Haden on bass, this residency signaled the arrival of Coleman’s radical avant-garde experiments to jazz’s mainstream. The “caravan” in the song’s title is a reference to the Caravan of Dreams performing arts center in Coleman’s hometown, Fort Worth, Texas.
His sixteenth album, James Brandon Lewis Trio’s Apple Cores further cements Lewis as one of the provocative and prolific musical voices of his generation. It follows his breakthrough with JazzTimes’ Album of the Year Jesup Wagon (2021), a dreamlike mosaic of gospel, folk-blues, and catcalling brass bands inspired by inventor George Washington Carver, and Eye Of I (2023), his joyous and exploratory debut for ANTI-.
The latter paved the way for The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis (2024), a collaboration with experimental jazz punk trio the Messthetics. Recently named their Rising Star as both Artist of the Year and Composer of the Year, Downbeat declared: “James Brandon Lewis does not take the easy road. Having forged a singular sound on the tenor saxophone, he could simply devise settings that showcase his brawny tone. Instead, he has rooted his recent music in extramusical research.”
Lewis also issues a challenge to his peers and the listener on Apple Cores: we must continue to keep jazz’s long and storied history close to our hearts and minds. By doing this, we can keep the innovations of our forebears alive, enriching our present-day experiences along the way.
“Just thinking about all of the different influences that Don Cherry opened himself up to,” Lewis said. “That should be a regular example of how to remain curious. My slogan with the trio is that I’m chasing energy, and that energy can be any type. This joint is hittin’ and I hope people receive it that way.”
