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Jon Irabagon: Server Farm

By John Sharpe
March 7, 2025
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Artificial Intelligence would have a hard job pinning down saxophonist

Jon Irabagon

saxophone, tenor

" data-original-title="" title="">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 emulates its output by sifting through his bandmates' discographies to identify typical elements from their expression which he can weave into his own material.

Irabagon addresses a dystopian future with a suitably overloaded palette. Not only does he supplement his quartet, comprising pianist

Matt Mitchell

piano
b.1975

" data-original-title="" title="">Matt Mitchell, electric bassist

Chris Lightcap

bass
b.1971

" data-original-title="" title="">Chris Lightcap and drummer

Dan Weiss

drums

" data-original-title="" title="">Dan Weiss, with a further six players, but he also enlists post production techniques to further thicken the aural brew. Consequently, the five multi-part pieces boast huge density of detail, as themes vie with intersecting layers, swirling polyphony, surging beats, and pithy cameos. Irabagon's crew includes some of NYC's most wily operators, the sort for whom his complex forms hold no fears whatsoever.

"Colocation" begins with

Levy Lorenzo

drums

" data-original-title="" title="">Levy Lorenzo's kulintang (a set of tuned Phillipines gongs) setting out a dancing introduction before toggling between dislocated drive, seesawing horns and glitchy crackles. Only Mitchell's Fender Rhodes gets an extended run, though

Peter Evans

trumpet

" data-original-title="" title="">Peter Evans' puckish trumpet can be heard in a sort of big band dialogue. It is clear from the start that Irabagon is thinking in orchestral terms, wielding the twin guitars of

Wendy Eisenberg

guitar

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

Miles Okazaki

guitar
b.1974

" data-original-title="" title="">Miles Okazaki, the violin of

Mazz Swift

violin

" data-original-title="" title="">Mazz Swift and the acoustic bass of

Michael Formanek

bass, acoustic
b.1958

" data-original-title="" title="">Michael Formanek in ways to further his edgy madcap vision.

Irabagon himself is the prime soloist, particularly on the doomy lurch of "Graceful Exit," where lush Ellingtonian textures become progressively subverted by electronic asides, and on the scratchy pointillist staccato of "Routers." On this latter cut, the leader's disjointed squawks and echoing phrases are the result of an overdubbed solo which he then fed through various effects pedals, chopped up and flipped over the steadily escalating impetus. Evans also stands out, cutting through in a mercurial duet with one of the guitars at the outset of "Singularities," before another careening offkilter tenor outburst from the leader.

On the final "Spy," over an uneasy morass, Swift sings a poem written by Irabagon which perceives a bumblebee as a surveillance drone. As instrumental discontinuities, juxtapositions, and disembodied mutters percolate up around the voice, Irabagon's sopranino skirls deep in the mix, alongside a further recitation, and a fugue-like passage for violin, saxophone and trumpet.

Expressing himself through the medium of the ensemble, Irabagon mines an uncertain outlook for adventurous answers.

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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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Jon Irabagon Concerts

Sep 17 Wed

Barry Altschul 3Dom Factor

Entropy Gallery
Santa Fe, NM

Nov 21 Fri

Jon Irabagon Quintet

Firehouse 12
New Haven, CT

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