Jazz Articles about Aaron Irwin

About Aaron Irwin

Radio & Podcasts

Aaron Irwin, jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and bandleader talks about his new release

by Doug Hall
April 11, 2026

Today our musical guest artist is Aaron Irwin. Mr. Irwin is a critically acclaimed saxophonist, multi-woodwind player, and composer. He began studying piano when he was 5 years old and switched to the alto saxophone in the 4th grade. In 2024, Mr. Irwin released After (Adhyâropa Records, 2024), his ninth album, which was a collection of works inspired by poetry, as quoted in a AAJ profile, described as “interactions between sound and verse weaving together melancholy, effervescence, and at times, ...

Take Five With...

Take Five From Aaron Irwin

by AAJ Staff
May 2, 2024

Meet Aaron Irwin Critically acclaimed saxophonist, multi-woodwind player, and composer Aaron Irwin is a compelling voice of his generation. Known as a “lyrical alto saxophonist and a compelling original composer" (The New Yorker), Irwin is a sought-after commodity in the New York jazz scene. Aaron Irwin celebrates his latest project: (After) (Adhyâropa Records, 2024). His ninth album, it is a collection of works inspired by poetry as interactions between sound and verse weave together melancholy, effervescence, and at times, anxiety ...

Album Review

Bobby Kapp: Synergy

by Jack Bowers
September 7, 2023

The subtitle of Synergy is “Bobby Kapp plays the music of Richard Sussman," which is true to some extent. To be more precise, drummer Kapp is at the heart of a septet, conducted by Scott Reeves, that features composer Sussman at the piano. So, while “Bobby Kapp plays" is technically correct, it does not represent the whole picture. What is more, this is a group with a rather unusual front line of violin, clarinet, tenor sax and French ...

Album Review

Mike Fahie Jazz Orchestra: Urban(e)

Read "Urban(e)" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
October 23, 2020

There's a rocky history surrounding jazz-classical hybrids. But, in truth, that has little to do with any potential incompatibility. Instead, it's usually misguided maneuvering and/or an excessive show of dominant traits from one side or the other that mars said unions. When done right a wedding of those worlds can truly birth brilliance. Just listen to Urban(e) for proof. Noted trombonist, composer, arranger and educator Mike Fahie's unabashed love for classical music and jazz is clear and ...

Album Review

Mike Fahie Jazz Orchestra: Urban(e)

by Jack Bowers
August 5, 2020

Most Western music, irrespective of its origin and premise, inhabits the same harmonic, chordal and rhythmic universe. So it should not be surprising that classical music, in the hands of a skilled arranger, can be readily recast in a jazz idiom, even one that is housed within a big-band framework. On Urban(e), trombonist Mike Fahie's New York-based Jazz Orchestra braves that challenge, quickening Fahie's translations of works by Frederic Chopin, Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy, Bela Bartok, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky and ...

Album Review

Aaron Irwin Quartet: A Room Forever

Read "A Room Forever" reviewed by Neri Pollastri

by Neri Pollastri
November 3, 2016

Quartetto dall'approccio molto cameristico questo messo assieme dal clarinettista e compositore statunitense, oggi di stanza a New York. Un camerismo che viene esaltato da un lato dalla formazione, priva di batteria, e dall'altro dalle ispirazioni extramusicali delle composizioni, che fanno riferimento ai racconti dello scrittore statunitense Breece D'J Pancake, morto suicida nel 1979 a soli ventisette anni. Non che le musiche di questo A Room Forever non abbiano un'autonomia rispetto ai racconti di Pancake da cui sono ispirate ...

Album Review

Aaron Irwin Quartet: A Room Forever

Read "A Room Forever" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
April 15, 2016

Reedman Aaron Irwin is a very ambitious composer and on his latest, A Room Forever, shows how to plumb emotional depths with subtlety and grace. The inspiration for this music is the short stories by Breece Dexter John Pancake, sometimes written Breece D'J Pancake, the spelling of which comes from a typo in the Atlantic Magazine. Pancake lived to be only twenty- six and died by his own hand; his stories focus on his native West ...