(Micah Fluellen / Los Angeles Times)
Through it all, Lewis has insisted on the crucial African American contribution to Western music — in particular improvisation in all its ramifications — and he has been critical of those who ignore or deny it. In an influential musicological essay, Lewis positioned the influences of Charlie Parker and John Cage on modern music, noting the difference between the revolutionary shock of Bird’s bebop and what he considers the more aestheticized aspect of Cage’s uses of indeterminacy. It is a nice touch that the newest recording of Lewis’ music, his quirkily imaginative “String Quartet, 1.5: Experiments in Living,” written for the Chicago-based Spektral Quartet, will be released Aug. 28, the day before what would have been Parker’s 100th birthday.