James Brandon Lewis
James Brandon Lewis is an American jazz composer and saxophonist.
Life
Lewis graduated from Howard University in 2006, after which he focused on gospel music. He received his MFA in 2010 from the California Institute of the Arts. During his graduate training, he studied the work of music theorist Joseph Schillinger. In 2012, he relocated to New York City and switched to jazz, releasing his first album Divine Travels in 2014. This album was followed by nine more albums, including Jesup Wagon, which was selected as Album of the Year by DownBeat critics in 2022. He graduated with a PhD in Creativity from the Rowan University in Philadelphia in 2025.Discography
- Moments
- Divine Travels
- Days of FreeMan
- No Filter
- Radiant Imprints
- An Unruly Manifesto
- Live in Willisau
- Molecular
- Jesup Wagon
- Code of Being
- MSM Molecular Systematic Music - Live
- Eye of I
- For Mahalia, with Love
- Transfiguration
- The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis
- Apple Cores
- Abstraction Is Deliverance