The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis – s/t (Impulse!, 2024)

When I saw this album on the shelves I was curious and skeptical at the same time. Curious because in Eye of I (Anti-, 2023), net of the recognizable influences (Ayler, Coltrane, Ware, Brotzmann) that were available through Lewis’ elocution and that made me classify him in the limb of the musicians that still need to find their own distinct voice, the closing composition featuring The Messthetics, even if reminding of Albert Ayler’s The Last Album (Impulse!, 1969), created interest in me for future releases.

But now, with this disc in my hands, I was also skeptical because I was fearing to listen to a derivative musician. The critics that praised JBL in these last year weren’t mistaken, after all even Wayne Shorter at the beginning of his career had a strong tie and connection with Coltrane as a soloist, but being accustomed to listen to every sort of failed attempt possible in order to give life to a proper improv or avant garde music in the last ten years or so, I surely expect to be disappointed even by the most emblazoned artists.

After some listenings I can say this is partially the case. On a way, the album reminds the listener of the stylistical changes of Henry Rollins’ Black Flag, prepared by the previous albums but come to a well defined metal-free jazz shape with the EP Process of Weeding Out (SST, 1985), a record that opened the doors for a plethora of bands that incidentally prepared the audience for the future evolutions of post-rock and stoner rock; on the other hand, more than a well defined bunch of compositions, the album seems to be nothing more than a recorded jam session. Good stuff but far from the intentionality we all exspect from some pieces of recorded music.

Even because the LP herein reviewed is without title or, if you prefer, titled with the name of the band, as is to say ‘this is our music’. Not that much for a self presentation. But let’s go with some order. Messthetic is an experimental post punk trio comprised of the rhythm section by the now on long breaks Fugazi (Joe Lally on bass and Brendan Canty on drums) plus guitarist Anthony Pirog, a musician acclaimed at his appearance on the scenes since his versatility and multifaceted style of playing, who collaborated with the likes of Elliot Sharp and Henry Kaiser.

Arrived at their third album with this release, Messthetics have been formed because both Lally and Canty wanted to keep on experimenting with shapes and dynamics as they did since Fugazi’s Red Medicine (Dischord, 1995). Their encounter with James Brandon Lewis came in occasion of the last album of the latter Eye of I and this album can be considered as an extention of the last track of that LP. The album opens with L’Orso where we can listen to a thick but relaxed dialogue between guitar and saxophone and some unison moments on a theme used by many jazz musicians as a device for improvisations: all well done but nothing really new or exciting but the feeling.

Emergence start showing Pirog virtuosity on guitar and evolve in a mid tempo punk progression with Lewis on the stands that suddenly turns into a ride where one can appreciate the tenorist efforts to give life to a more precise style, confrontational and a little bit less derivative, even if maybe this impression is a result of the sum of the parts. That Thang start with another well abused riff that leave space to Pirog and Lewis evolutions on guitar and tenor, this last more deconstructed, so to speak, than the guitar parts.

Three Sisters starts as a ballad becoming a nice progression, and since its use of dynamics is one of the most intriguing pieces on the album even if it lacks some elements of surprises (that stop and go moments, dub parts etc.) that were typical of some of the musicians’ mothership. Boatly is a composition that follows in the same furrow and gives life to a nice, melancholic melody that suddenly turns into an anthem, while The Time is The Place is another attemp to give life to a nice ground for Lewis and Pirog respective soloing.

Railroad Tracks Home is yet another abused jazz riff launched in order to give space to soloism. As far as personal tastes, I find this alternation of rock and jazz stylistic features a little bit predictable, and that this way the four musicians would produce an enormous quantity of albums, that, as an example, is what King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard are doing right now. If you’re a great musician it is easy to jam and produce something reasonable, but instantaneous composition is definitely another matter.

Finally with Asthenia, a soft ballad, and Fourth Wall, which have a more sustained rhythm, we’ve gone at the end of this journey and we can say for sure this music is good enough to become something we want to put on a plate just to relax while drinking something good, but not enough good as a tool to learn something new about music developments. For this, maybe James Brandon Lewis and/or the Messthetics will help us with their future releases. For the moment we can take note about the fact that they are able to enjoy their time playing but the spark is still far from shining.  

 

 

James Brandon Lewis "Eye of I" (Anti-, 2023)

One of the main reasons people love jazz is because it is a multi-layered music – since its tradition and heritage – and being so it offers a multi-layered experience of listening. Take for instance a multi-instrumentalist like Lao Dan from Dandong (China): he plays jazz with a post punk attitude, not mixing two different styles of music but bringing jazz out of the academia. In fact, he plays a music that is usually based on reflexion and inner listening into the realm of expressive urgency, even if what he plays remains jazz music (mostly and for the most part of it).

Something similar happens with the album Eye of I (Anti-, 2023) released by African American saxophonist James Brandon Lewis. In this case we have at least one ‘fusion’ of jazz with a completely different style – thanks to the Messthetics’ ‘jazz punk jam’ in the ending ‘Fear Not’ – but not only: all the album is a jazz album driven with the energy and the need to express something less elaborated than in the conservatory-trained musicians.

All is good until the moment in which you realise that Lewis, a solid player in the tradition of Coltrane whose –isms are unluckily solid as the tradition he echoes, is expanding his palette only to resemble others, clearly identifiable, hystorical musicians instead of try to find his own language. This way, you can run into the ‘Brotzmanisms’ of the 47 seconds of the machine gun-esque Middleground, or into the ‘Aylerisms’ of Eye of I – there’s also a guitar riff reminding the opening of Ayler’s The Last Album (Impulse!, 1969) – or again into the ‘Wareisms’ of the oblique melody of Womb Water (listen to the album David S. Ware released in 2010 by Amu Fidelity under the title of Onecept).

It is difficult to decide, after listening to this album in its entirety, if Lewis is only a true connoisseur/devotee to the history of the most innodic and/or confrontational free jazz or if the shadow of some craftiness is emanating from his personality, at this point in his career. Obviously one wants to believe that a musician who is trying to find his place into the jazz continuum, and not only into the market, making difficult choices like the one explained at the beginning of this review is something more than a smart guy. But playing jazz is also psychologically demanding since you don’t know where you will be at the end of your rhetorical constructions, so the need for solid ground can be tricky even if you are honest.

For the moment we can enjoy these pieces of music, and also the likes of Send Seraphic Being, a ballad tinged into the New York sound of the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, even if in listening to a piece like Within You Are Answers one can notice how much less adventurous JBL saxophone raids are in comparison to his models. Nonetheless this is an album that will be chatted, because Lewis is the kind of musician many people are wanting to hear in order to continue one of the most intriguing traditions into the jazz history, and because his aesthetic choiches are nontheless intriguing.