Jon Irabagon

One of the leading lights of contemporary creative saxophone music, Jon Irabagon (b. 1978) hails from Chicago, made his name in New York, and has returned to the Windy City with decisive ferocity, joining the city's bustling scene as an active participant and bandleader. Known for many of his groups, including Mostly Other People Do The Killing and PlainsPeak, as well as membership in ensembles led by Mary Halvorson, Dave Douglas, and Barry Altschul, Irabagon is a ceaselessly inventive horn player and dazzling technician with a devilish sense of humor.

To experience Irabagon in the purest setting, CvsD invited him to present a concert of unaccompanied solos on his bottom-end horn, which sounded positively elephantine in the gallery's reverberant walls. Furthermore, an invitation to consider two composers, Julius Hemphill and Anthony Braxton, led Irabagon to search the vaults for lesser known charts by these iconic figures, two compositions each. The results were mind-blowing and ear-juddering, offering new perspectives on Hemphill's deep blues feel and Braxton's erector set structures. Deftly recorded in all their bodacious ambiance, these bass meditations are both homages to the music's history and icebreakers into its oceanic future.