Music always has an extra intensity when driven by feelings of intimacy. In the text included in the album “For Mahalia With Love”, saxophonist James Brandon Lewis writes a letter to Mahalia Jackson, confessing that he had always wondered what his grandmother’s experience would have been like as a child attending a concert by the legendary gospel singer and civil rights activist. With the Red Lily Quintet, the musician draws on several juxtaposed lineages: his family, his fight against racism and his jazz background. After two auspicious performances at Jazz em Agosto, with Heroes Are Gang Leaders and with his quartet, Brandon Lewis returns at the head of a deluxe quintet and under the influence of one of the greatest voices in American music.