Gospel music's longstanding and rich relationship with the saxophone in both R&B and jazz can be heard in anybody from Vernard Johnson and Junior Walker to Albert Ayler and David Murray, and this mature, well-rounded statement from New York tenor player Lewis is a worthy addition to the lineage. Mentored by the likes of Charlie Haden and Wadada Leo Smith, the 32 year-old certainly has the courage of his convictions, appearing in the exposed setting of a trio with two older, highly experienced players, drummer Cleaver and double bassist Parker. As the album's title and several songs make clear – ‘The Preacher's Baptist Beat’, ‘A Gathering Of Souls’ – the spiritual context of the music is paramount, but the rub is that Lewis has managed to re-channel familiar church ambiances in a manner that veers from the understated to the explicit. Generally speaking a meditative tone prevails, with the trio using the space and clarity of the setting to emphasise themes that have a sermon's warmth in arrangements that balance rhythmic fracture and fluidity. The clever meshing of the timeless, deeply emotive melodies of ‘Wade In The Water’ and ‘Motherless Child’ that occurs on ‘Wading Child In The Motherless Water’ is one of the highpoints of the set, but what's also pleasing is the way the players invigorate the call and response tradition by offsetting short, condensed motifs with much busier, lengthier lines, thus blending serenity and energy in a simple but effective construct. With the kind of hard, flinty, precisely articulated tone that has shades of Booker Ervin, Lewis improvises with impressive focus amid the shifting canvas created by his accompanists, and the sharpness of his timbres works particularly well against the deep sigh of Cleaver's toms. Two passages of spoken word featuring author Thomas Sayers Ellis illuminate the cultural base of the music but Lewis's greatest achievement is to have created elegiac moods that, on occasion, are not dissimilar to those of Sonny Rollins' landmark Freedom Suite.