Having made a fine album with his Red Lily quintet in 2021, Jesup’s Wagon, tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis returns with his quartet and offers further proof of his status as a notable composer-improviser in contemporary jazz. The Coltranian idea of ‘oneness of four’ is an unavoidable premise for all those who choose the reed & acoustic rhythm section format but Lewis is astute enough to both acknowledge the model and lend it a personal DNA.

In pianist Aruan Ortiz, double bassist Brad Jones and drummer Chad Taylor, he has accompanists capable of treading the fine line between gravity and levity in sound, so that the strong, robust attack of each musician is held in artful balance. The band can thus simmer as much as it cooks. It is as if Trane the balladeer and Trane the ‘energy player’ had come to simultaneously occupy the same space. 2020’s Molecular went down that road and this is even more accomplished, particularly on a compelling piece such as ‘Archimimedean’, which makes it clear that a lower tempo can hit as hard as a higher one, or ‘Per 4’, a beguiling rhythmic-harmonic carriage that, by way of careful slurs of timbre and skewed accents, creates an impression of backwards motion.

The leader’s sturdy, raw, unfiltered rasp has, on occasion, a solemn character that resonates all the more powerfully on eastern-inflected pieces such as ‘Where Is Hella’, while Ortiz emerges as a brilliant frontline ally insofar as he makes lengthy statements that enrich the stated harmony and also engages in clever rhythmic exchanges, sometimes in dartingly concise flurries that often magnify some of the intricacy of Chad Taylor’s whirling snare and toms.

Intriguing and affecting work from a pace-setting band.