Jon Irabagon – tenor saxophone, sopranino saxophone, effects
Mazz Swift – violin, vocals
Peter Evans – trumpet, flugelhorn
Miles Okazaki – guitar
Wendy Eisenberg – guitar
Matt Mitchell – piano, Fender Rhodes, Prophet-6
Michael Formanek – acoustic bass
Chris Lightcap – electric bass
Dan Weiss – drums
Levy Lorenzo – kulintang, laptop, electronics, vibraphone
Even in jazz music, which has always drawn individuals and iconoclasts, Jon Irabagon stands out. Irabagon has the unique ability to play in every style and virtually every saxophone, having recorded on alto, tenor, sopranino, soprano, and recently a solo recital on the tiny soprillo (Survivalism), all with astounding virtuosity. Irabagon has a personal sound and approach that makes you feel as a listener that you know who he is. When you hear Irabagon, you hear the jazz tradition even while he’s irreverently tweaking it. Irabagon’s sound and playing show an open-minded love of collaboration and a comic’s wit that manifests as the boldness to “go for it” when he lights into his next solo.
That’s what I hear when I listen to Jon Irabagon. When I found out he was releasing a new album with a 10-piece band comprising some of the greatest musicians around, I knew this would be music made for me. That album, Server Farm, was released on February 21st and is Irabagen’s most sophisticated and accomplished work yet. Server Farm successfully integrates ideas that have long percolated through Irabagon’s previous work, and this new release reveals a high level of compositional prowess from one of today’s most exciting musicians.
Irabagon organizes the music on Server Farm around the idea of artificial intelligence, making the disruption of AI and its potential antagonism to humans the narrative that informs the music. The press release frames Server Farm as a “single narrative that progresses from the natural and human to the artificial and hybrid throughout its five extended tracks.” That theme is conveyed through increasing elements of dissonance and even with an Irabagon-penned poem sung by violinist Mazz Swift, about tech-driven paranoia on the album closing “Spy.”
Although Server Farm ends on a dark note, there’s lots of joyous and irrelevant fun along the way, and with such ambitious writing, the music is the main thing and is consistently compelling. As I noted above, the album is a performed by a decet that Irabagon says he conceived as a double quintet, pairing the lead voices of Irabagon’s saxes (tenor and sopranino) against Peter Evan’s trumpet, and thickening the texture with dual guitarists (Miles Okazaki and Wendy Eisenberg), duel bassists (Michael Formanek on acoustic and Chris Lightcap playing electric), and dual choral/electronics (Matt Mitchell on piano/keyboards and Levy Lorenzo on laptop, electronics and vibraphone). The group is completed by Mazz Swift’s violin and propelled by Dan Weiss’ drums. These long-time colleagues of Irabagon each have strong individual identities, but their voices are largely woven into the dense ensemble sound rather than organized around individual solos. Jumping out from these settings are Irabagon himself, who sometimes adds electronic effects to his horn, and Peter Evans, who is given space for several bristling trumpet solos. Maybe most prominent are Dan Weiss’ drums, which organize the flow of the music in a way that reminded me of the role Ed Blackwell plays in Don Cherry’s classic 1960s Blue Notes (while sounding nothing like Blackwell – like the rest of this group Weiss sounds like nobody but himself).
In at least two ways, Irabagon has created an album that represents a new chapter in his discography. First, the seamless blending of “inside” and “outside” elements in the music serves Irabagon’s AI concept. One of the delightful pleasures of Irabogen’s past work has been the ease with which he moves back and forth between more conventional post-bop settings and the free-form avant-garde. But in the past, this was often demonstrated through contrasting albums, nowhere more provocatively than on the simultaneous 2016 release of a sophisticated album with Tom Harrell (Behind The Sky) at the same time as Inaction is an Action, a bracingly noisy workout on sopranino sax. Look anywhere in Irabagon’s work, and you’ll see a lively dialogue between jazz history and experimentalism.
With Server Farm, the AI narrative has inspired Irabagon to incorporate many of these prior directions in one album, creating a playground of contrasting ideas set against each other. For example, on “Colocation,” after a percussion intro from Levy Lorenzo’s kulintang (a row of small melodic gongs), the music launches into a groovy ’70s-sounding prog rock theme reminiscent of Hatfield and the North. But that does not last long – the music quickly evolves into dissonant ensemble passages of “suspended time” effects that could be in a new music program, and then abruptly back into the a rock-fusion vamp over which Peter Evans takes a hot solo. The retro sounds and textures are juxtaposed against more contemporary ideas to create a post-modern context; it’s a joyful romp but without a hint of irony. Irabagon deploys a similar see-saw of contrasts throughout Server Farm, mixing pleasing genre-specific themes next to more acerbic sounds. The friction of melody vs. noise and old vs. new is thrilling.
The other new vista here is the large ensemble writing. I’ve seen comparisons to the music of Carla Bley or Charlie Haden, which are great touchstones and reflect the ambition and accomplishment here, but I keep thinking of Charles Mingus. Like Mingus, Irabagon is a surrealist who bends conventions toward his aesthetic and programmatic needs and has an irrepressible desire to put his stamp on jazz history. Also, like Mingus, Irabagon addresses big themes and has incorporated innovations with composition and his poetry into this project. With this accomplished music, Irabagon flexes his muscles as an important conceptualist – he’s one to watch for what he does next. Server Farm will have me coming back over and over to appreciate its striking complexity and ambition – make sure you listen and enjoy one of the great ones of 2025!
More Links!
Jon Irabagon on the Radio at WVKR
I announced in a previous post that I’ve started a new radio show on 91.3 FM Vassar College radio, called “Where is Brooklyn?” If you want to hear more of Irabagon’s work from over the last year on the radio, including listening to some of Server Farm, tune in Tuesday morning March 4th at 5 AM, at wvkr.org.
Irabagon on Server Farm
I would love to see more interviews with Irabagon about his ideas for this album, conceptually and especially musically. At the time I’m writing this, you can read his interview with Post Genre and a review with commentary from Irabagon at Arts Fuse. Read this interview at The Rhythm of Study for an in- depth discussion his approach to music and about two of Irabagon’s excellent 2024 releases (the solo soprillo Survivalism and the quintet Recharge the Blade).
Check out Irabagon’s Label
Server Farm and many of Irabagon’s essential releases are on his label, Irabbagast Records. You can check out those records here at Bandcamp. Make sure you support this outstanding artist!
(Jon Irabagon – Image from the artist’s website)