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Jazz Articles about Jon Irabagon
PlainsPeak: Someone to Someone
by Glenn Astarita
Jon Irabagon's PlainsPeak delivers a soulful homecoming via a love letter to Chicago with its debut, Someone to Someone. Ditching the tech-heavy sprawl of his earlier work like Server Farm (Irabbagast, 2025), the leader returns to Chicago's gritty roots with a lean acoustic quartet that is all heart and sly wit. Irabagon, a Chicago-born saxophonist and winner of the Thelonious Monk Competition, leads with his alto's warm expressive tone. He is joined by trumpeter Russ Johnson, a longtime ...
Continue ReadingNew Music From Irabagon, Atzmon, Farnsworth & More
by Bob Osborne
A varied selection of new releases interspersed with tracks from Ivo Perelman's six volume set The Art of Improv focuses on the importance of improvisation in jazz. Playlist Jon Irabagon's PlainsPeak “Tiny Miracles (at a Funeral for a Friend)" from Someone to Someone (Irabbagast Records) 00:00 Ivo Perelman, Karl Berger, Gerald Cleaver “Part 1" from The Art Of The Improv Trio Volume 1 (Leo Records) 05:44 Gilad Atzmon, Daniel Bulatkin, Taras Volos, Dusan Cernak “Autumn in Baghdad" from ...
Continue ReadingJon Irabagon / PlainsPeak: Someone to Someone
by Jack Kenny
Jon Irabagon is a musician whose complexity is both exhilarating and daunting. His restless energy, deep self-reflection, remarkable achievements and sharp intellect combine to create a figure who constantly provokes questions--about music, originality and the very nature of artistic expression. In 2011, Irabagon undertook a bold experiment: With Mostly Other People Do The Killing, he recorded Blue (Hot Cup, 2014), a note-for-note recreation of Miles Davis's iconic Kind of Blue (Columbia Records, 1959). This endeavor recalls Gus Van ...
Continue ReadingGustavo Cortiñas: The Crisis Knows No Borders
by Hrayr Attarian
Drummer Gustavo Cortinas is one of Chicago's most imaginative and exciting composers. This is not solely due to his brilliant creativity but also because he explores socially aware and relevant themes. He has honed a unique style that is easily recognizable as his own. His sixth release as a leader, the superb The Crisis Knows No Border, is about the impact of human-made climate change. Cortinas leads his quartet through the 10 provocative and richly-textured, interlinked originals ...
Continue ReadingConfronting AI
by David Bixler
AI-labor saving tool or existential threat? On his new recording Server Farm, saxophonist and composer Jon Irabagon contemplates the potential threat and promise of this omni-present technology. For this recording Irabagon augments his regular quartet consisting of keyboardist Matt Mitchell, bassist Chris Lightcap, and percussionist Dan Weiss with violinist and vocalist Mazz Swift, trumpeter Peter Evans, guitarists Miles Okazaki and Wendy Eisenberg, bassist Michael Formanek, and percussionist and electronic musician Levy Lorenzo. Imitating AI, Jon spent several years doing a ...
Continue ReadingJon Irabagon: Server Farm
by Vincenzo Roggero
Quando un agitatore musicale come Jon Irabagon, mente tra le più aperte, corrosive, imprevedibili e significative della scena jazzistica statunitense mette insieme un tentetto da paura per esplorare fatti e misfatti dell'intelligenza artificiale, curiosità e aspettative sono ai massimi livelli. E questo Server Farm le soddisfa pienamente, ennesima prova della grandezza di un musicista onnivoro in grado di esaltare ed esaltarsi in tutta la gamma di formazioni messe in campo negli ultimi quindici anni. Dal sax solo di ...
Continue ReadingJon Irabagon: Server Farm
by John Sharpe
Artificial Intelligence would have a hard job pinning down saxophonist Jon Irabagon's defining characteristics. When a player is as talented as Irabagon, who can turn his hand to almost any style, sometimes the challenge is to find a focus that stimulates. On Server Farm, Irabagon has taken the notion of AI and the ever increasing prevalence of the digital world as his casus belli. Not that he uses AI himself in composing the album, rather as the PR reveals, he ...
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