James Brandon Lewiss Apple Cores (2025) is a bold, genre-blurring journey that fuses free jazz, hip-hop, funk, and spiritual groove into a cohesive and electrifying statement. Recorded in two fully improvised sessions with longtime collaborators Chad Taylor (drums, mbira) and Josh Werner (bass, guitar), the album is both a tribute to avant-garde legends like Don Cherry and Amiri Baraka and a forward-looking manifesto for contemporary jazz.

The trios chemistry is palpable, with Lewiss tenor saxophone weaving through angular rhythms and dub-inflected textures. Tracks like Remember Brooklyn & Moki and Five Spots to Caravan nod to Cherrys legacy, while Broken Shadows pays homage to Ornette Coleman. The result is a record that feels both grounded in jazz tradition and unbound in its exploration.

Reviews

A vibrant celebration of tradition dressed as an urgent manifesto of the new. Aquarium Drunkard

Apple Cores is less a jazz album and more an experimentation with rhythm and sound Its frantic, urgent, sometimes serene, and ultimately, toys with whats possible with musical composition. New Noise Magazine

The trios real triumph is found by looking at the bigger picture, discerning the elegant way in which they connect the ends of these disparate threads, shaping a close-knit, immensely enjoyable whole. The Quietus

He astutely balances tradition with the new, mixing his patented approach with some new twists, from the energetic to the delicate. Glide Magazine

Apple Cores further cements Lewis as one of the provocative and prolific musical voices of his generation. ANTI- Records

A-1 Apple Cores #1
A-2 Prince Eugene
A-3 Five Spots to Caravan
A-4 Of Mind And Feeling
A-5 Apple Cores #2
A-6 Broken Shadows
B-1 Remember Brooklyn & Moki
B-2 D.C. Got Pocket
B-3 Apple Cores #3
B-4 Dont Forget Jayne
B-5 Exactly, Our Music