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Jon Irabagon: Server Farm

By Dan McClenaghan
February 28, 2025
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"The times they are a-changin.'"

Bob Dylan

guitar and vocals
b.1941

" data-original-title="" title="">Bob Dylan said that in 1964. He was right. In 2025, they are still changing, perhaps most notably with the emergence of artificial intelligence. That previously slow creep—outlined so accurately in Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968, paired with Stanely Kubrick's movie of the same name—will build to a tipping point leading to an implosion. The takeover is inevitable. The only way to address it is through the arts. This is what saxophonist-composer Jon Irabagon does with Server Farm.

Irabagon has plowed an extensive leader-co-leader path since his on-record debut, 2005's Mostly Other People Do the Killing (Hot Cup), followed by his leader debut, Jon Irabagon's Outright! (Innova, 2008). He is a free jazz madman who goes about as far out there as it gets with his saxophone. As a sideman—with the likes of trumpeters

Dave Douglas

trumpet
b.1963

" data-original-title="" title="">Dave Douglas and

Chad McCullough

trumpet
b.1981

" data-original-title="" title="">Chad McCullough, guitarist

Mary Halvorson

guitar

" data-original-title="" title="">Mary Halvorson and bassist

Moppa Elliott

bass
b.1978

" data-original-title="" title="">Moppa Elliott—he lifts the ensemble sound with his raw energy and unpredictability.

Now he channels the experiences of his busy recording history and past collaborations into fearless explorations of the emergence and evolution of AI.

On one level, it is an unsettling listening experience. On another, there is beauty in the combination of all-star players mixing up a strange brew of music to address the coming of what could turn into a quiet apocalypse.

Server Farm is Electric (note the capital letter E). It sounds like something of an update of the

Miles Davis

trumpet
1926 - 1991

" data-original-title="" title="">Miles Davis- Teo Macero collaborations that resulted in Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970). There are wall-shaking cacophonies and dark interludes of foreboding motifs woven together by Irabagon's sax, a pair of electric guitars (

Miles Okazaki

guitar
b.1974

" data-original-title="" title="">Miles Okazaki and

Wendy Eisenberg

guitar

" data-original-title="" title="">Wendy Eisenberg) and

Peter Evans

trumpet

" data-original-title="" title="">Peter Evans' terrorizing trumpet.

Mazz Swift

violin

" data-original-title="" title="">Mazz Swift's violin peeks through the thick curtains of noise from time to time,

Matt Mitchell

piano
b.1975

" data-original-title="" title="">Matt Mitchell plays the keyboards and a pair of bassists,

Michael Formanek

bass, acoustic
b.1958

" data-original-title="" title="">Michael Formanek and

Chris Lightcap

bass
b.1971

" data-original-title="" title="">Chris Lightcap, construct shifting foundations beside drummer

Dan Weiss

drums

" data-original-title="" title="">Dan Weiss.

A server farm—for those unaware of this gathering menace—is a collection of servers housed and working together to enhance their productivity and efficiency and power. A web search on the subject is frightening, as is a good deal of Irabagon's Server Farm. There is a feeling that, eventually, something has got to give with this immense gathering of information in humming, wall-spanning electro- behemoths that are in the process of building the formerly slow creep of AI into a sudden onslaught. Irabagon portrays this feeling adeptly.

Going back to Dylan: In 1993 he released World Gone Wrong (Columbia Records). The album opened with the title tune, borrowed from the Mississippi Sheiks, a country-blues group active in the 1930s. The opening lyric: "Strange things are happening, like never before." The Sheiks and Dylan were onto something. And now, Irabagon latches onto this theme and takes it for a wild ride with his Server Farm.

While much of the music is calamitous, the disc wraps up with what seems, initially, like the arrival of the dystopia with the tune "Spy." The worst and maybe the inevitable has happened. The band creates a drifting dreamscape, and violinist-vocalist Swift recites Irabagon's prescient poem. About a drone disguised as a bumblebee. Then the madness breaks out.

Scary stuff.

Learn more about our star rating system

Track Listing

Colocation; Routers; Singularities; Graceful Exit; Spy.

Personnel

Jon Irabagon

saxophone, tenor

Mazz Swift

violin

Peter Evans

trumpet

Miles Okazaki

guitar

Wendy Eisenberg

guitar

Matt Mitchell

piano

Michael Formanek

bass, acoustic

Chris Lightcap

bass

Dan Weiss

drums

Levy Lorenzo

drums

Additional Instrumentation

Jon Irabagon: sopranino saxophone, effects; Mazz Swift: vocals (5); Peter Evans: flugelhorn; Matt Mitchell: Fender Rhodes, Prophet-6; Levy Lorenzo: kulintang, laptop, electronics, vibraphone.

Album information

Title: Server Farm | Year Released: 2025 | Record Label: Irrabagast

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