Even for the ever-prolific saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, 2026 has been an especially big year, yielding three major releases: These Are Soulful Days, where he’s joined by a string quartet; Deface the Currency, his second collaboration with punk-jazz luminaries the Messthetics; and Omni, which unites gospel-informed feeling and free-jazz fervor with atonal composition. The longstanding quartet heard on that last release, with Aruán Ortiz on piano, Brad Jones on bass and Chad Taylor on drums, joins him this week for his first Village Vanguard run as a bandleader.

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