In 2008, Jon Irabagon won the Thelonious Monk Saxophone Competition. Since then, his productivity as a player, composer, and improviser has been immense. His latest recording, just released on CD and digital through his own label Irabbagast Records, is Focus Out. It offers seven pieces featuring his quartet with Matt Mitchell on piano and Fender Rhodes, Chris Lightcap on electric bass, and Dan Weiss on drums, plus guests: KOKAYI on vocals, Donny McCaslin and Mark Shim on tenor sax, Miles Okazaki on guitar, and Dave Ballou on trumpet. Irabagon plays alto on this energetic and adventurous set.
Jon Irabagon was solidly on the scene prior to winning the Monk Sax Competition, most notably in Mostly Other People Do the Killing, a mind-bendingly proficient ensemble that could grapple with the grand span of jazz history through a seamless combination of virtuosity and unconventionality, with occasional stabs of humor.
As he played on 11 of Mostly Other People Do the Killing’s releases up to 2017, Irabagon also joined ensembles led by drummers Barry Altschul and William Hooker, trumpeter Dave Douglas, and guitarist Mary Halvorson. Additionally, numerous recordings in co-leadership mode have been released along with an increasing number of his own albums.
Having landed the opportunity through the Monk Competition victory to cut a record as leader for the jazz label Concord, the resulting set, The Observer, spotlighted him in straight-ahead mode with top-flight backing including trumpeter Nicholas Payton, pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Rufus Reid, drummer Victor Lewis, and on one track, a duet with pianist Bertha Hope.
A big part of Irabagon’s artistry is his thorough and thoughtful grasp of mainstream Modern Jazz rudiments. This is most evident in Focus Out’s final track “Center Post,” which rolls with a blend of post-Giant Steps verve and a cusp-of-the-1980s sensibility that welcomes the supple flow of electric bass into an otherwise Trad-Modern studio recording context.
“Center Post” is designated as a bonus track, although it’s also available digitally at Bandcamp, so it’s unclear exactly how “bonus” applies, except that the track is a bit of a stylistic outlier on a wide-ranging recording. Opener “Morning Star” brings the Rhodes front and center as the composition’s angularity gets a severe case of the jitters. Along the way, Irabagon’s blowing gets increasingly torrid, and the whole thing just feels highly caffeinated in the best way.
The title track is next, a considerably funky affair at the start; the Rhodes and the amped bass fit the situation tight and right. There are multiple gear shifts into post-bop territory, sprints to blues-tinged mid-tempos, followed by a less structurally defined but still clearly jazzy closing stretch.
With the tracks “Paper Planes” and “Indigo Stains” (third and fifth in the order), Irabagon welcomes hip hop-inspired improvisational vocalist KOKAYI, with results that walk a thrilling trapeze of inspired thought spillage, much of it contemporarily focused in “Indigo Stains” as the band enters what could perhaps be described as a post-Strata East zone.
“Evening Star” brings in all the guest instrumentalists. It’s an excursion inspired by John Coltrane’s Ascension that retains a sense of post-bop (or maybe free-bop) tempo urgency; the crazier the journey gets, the clearer the technical fluency becomes. This isn’t showing off, it’s using skill to attain a higher plane of consciousness (the record’s title is tied to the practice of meditation).
“Prayer (for Reomi)” scales back to a duet with Mitchell on piano and is the certified beauty move on Focus Out. While not as bold in scale as Server Farm from 2025, Irabagon’s latest reinforces his stature as a leading light in 21st-century jazz saxophone.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
