09 Aug

[ August 15th, 2025 release on Irabbagast Records – Jon Irabagon’s PlainsPeak – Someone to Someone ]

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Filipino-American musical explorer proves you can go home again, both literally and figuratively

Someone to Someone available August 15, 2025 from saxophonist’s Irabbagast Records

“Irabagon’s expressive ability in terms of pure sound is incredible. He is ripe and rowdy, throaty and weird, burnished, loud, tender all at the right moments.” — Pop Matters

“What emerges from PlainsPeak is not merely a jazz album, but a kind of cartography, an emotional and sonic map of a place, drawn through the eyes of an artist deeply attuned to its rhythms, textures, and idiosyncrasies. Track by track, Irabagon invites the listener into a Chicago that is not postcard-perfect but alive, complex, and endlessly inspiring. It is a joy to be transported into this world, to wander its streets, absorb its atmospheres, and see the city anew through Irabagon’s singular lens.” – Thierry De Clemensat, Paris Move

15 Feb

[ February the 21st, 2025 release via Irabbagast Records: Jon Irabagon – Server Farm ]

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Out on February 21, 2025, on Irabbagast Records

Server Farm charts the tension between humans and the virtual with a phenomenal band featuring Mazz Swift, Peter Evans, Miles Okazaki, Wendy Eisenberg, Matt Mitchell, Michael Formanek, Chris Lightcap, Dan Weiss and Levy Lorenzo.

“As a strikingly original player with an imaginative vision, Irabagon keeps his music refreshingly focused but also bursting with freedom.” – Filipe Freitas, JazzTrail

“Irabagon is one of the most exciting talents to enter jazz in the new millennium… No other current saxophonist encompasses his mix of explosive energy, stylistic diversity, lethal chops and radical ideas.” – Thomas Conrad, JazzTimes

“Visceral clamour meets groove…. Server Farm moves nimbly between extremes of structure and texture. The beauty lies where the layers intersect.” – James Hale, DownBeat

01 Sep

[ September 6th, 2024 release on Pyroclastic Records: Patricia Brennan – Breaking Stretch ]

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The Breaking Stretch, Patricia Brennan‘s 3rd LP recording, comes in the format of 7 – tet. Due out September the 6th, 2024 via Pyroclastic Records, features Jon Irabagon, Mark Shim, Adam O’Farrill, Kim Cass, Marcus Gilmore and Mauricio Herrera.

“The jazz world can get stuck in a battle between the head and the heart, but rarely do you find an improviser like Patricia Brennan [whose] music seems to exist in a realm outside the body, but stays loaded with feeling.” – Giovanni Russonello, The New York Times

“Brennan supplements her dazzling technique with two-handed independence and unexpected tonal shifts courtesy of judicious use of electronics.” – John Sharpe, The New York City Jazz Record

With each new release in her still-burgeoning career, the vision of vibraphonist/marimbist/composer Patricia Brennan has grown exponentially in both scale and scope. From the nucleus of her acclaimed solo debut Maquishti she formed a singular quartet for her venturesome follow-up, More Touch, hailed as “scarily good” by All About Jazz.

19 Jul

[ July 19th, 2024 release via Cygnus Records: Miles Okazaki – Miniature America ]

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Guitarist Miles Okazaki gathers an extraordinary cast of ten musicians to create Miniature America, a collection of 22 vignettes exploring the wonder of chance encounters and “found” compositions.

Available July 19, 2024 via Cygnus Recordings, the album offers a serpentine journey through a sonic landscape created by Okazaki using radical studio techniques and material improvised by Matt Mitchell, Jen Shyu, Anna Webber, Jacob Garchik, Fay Victor, Jon Irabagon, Ganavya, Caroline Davis, and Patricia Brennan.

“finding fresh joy, surprise and what he calls “thisness” in off-kilter musical geometry has long been Okazaki’s specialty.” – Alan Scherstuhl, The New York Times

“Okazaki is a wildly versatile musician, freakishly precise, but also full of emotion.” – Craig Morgan Teicher, The Paris Review

05 Jun

[ June the 10th, 2022 release: John Yao & Triceratops’ – Off Kilter ]

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release date: 10.06.2022

“Yao’s compositions hold the kind of steady, swinging cadence of classic Blue Note bop, but with a definite post-bop edge in their spikey harmonies.” – Jackson Sinnenberg, DownBeat

“[Yao’s] music swings, lopes and races forward. All five of the bandmembers share command of their instruments and a likeminded sense of joy that makes the album feel like an amusement park ride: energetic, exciting, yet safe.” – Franz A. Matzner, All About Jazz

Trombonist/composer John Yao and his audacious three-horn quintet Triceratops release their bold, inventive second album Off-Kilter on June 10, 2022 via See Tao Recordings.The album features Yao with saxophonists Billy Drewes and Jon Irabagon, along with bassist Robert Sabin and drummer Mark Ferber. They celebrate the album on Sunday, June 12 at Culture Lab LIC, 5-25 46th Avenue, Long Island City, NY.

23 Jul

[ July the 30th, 2021 release on Not Two records: Barry Altschul’s The 3dom Factor – Long Tall Sunshine ]

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release date: 30.07.2021 on Not Two

“Altschul remains a master drummer and bandleader. Long Tall Sunshine pulls off a delightful paradox: it combines in-your-face vigor with subtlety, probing free improvisations with appealing compositions.” – Michael Ullman, Arts Fuse

“And so this album goes: surprise after surprise…Clearly one of the most exciting jazz recordings ever made!” – Lynn Bayley, Art Music Lounge

On The Long Tall Sunshine, Not Two, reconvenes Altschul’s adventurous group. Three, as those of us who grew up on Schoolhouse Rock will remember, truly is a magic number. It’s enshrined in the name of The 3dom Factor, the astounding trio led by legendary drummer/improviser Barry Altschul for the last decade or so. That sobriquet reflects the vital importance of all three voices in the band: not only Altschul’s powerful, ever-inquisitive drumming, but the tirelessly venturesome saxophone playing of Jon Irabagon and the acrobatic muscularity of bass great Joe Fonda.

18 Sep

[ October the 2nd,2020 release on Sunnyside Records: Noah Haidu – Doctone]

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release date: 02.10.2020 Via Sunnyside Records

“Haidu is one of the finest young jazz lions…with jazz luminaries like trumpeter Jeremy Pelt and alto saxophonist Jon Irabagon gracing the band as part of a core quintet, rising above their powerful performance is quite an accomplishment and Haidu does just that.” – Edward Blanco, JazzTimes

“Haidu’s ability to express deep feelings is striking.” – Tony Hall, Jazzwise (UK)

03 Apr

[ April the 10th release via Irabagast Records: Gordon Grdina Septet – Resist ]

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release date: 10.04.2020 via

“The prevailing ambience is one of dark mystery, but the ruggedness of Grdina’s tone makes for a palette of rich contrast.”

– David R. Adler, JazzTimes (review of Think Like the Waves)

“[Gordon Grdina is] a player of unbridled musical ingenuity.” – Raul da Gama, World Music Report

Resist, due out April 10, 2020 via Irabagast Records, unites Grdina’s long-standing trio with his East Van Strings quartet, joined by acclaimed saxophonist Jon Irabagon for a remarkable new suite blending progressive jazz and classical influences

10 Oct

[ October 18th release on See Tao Recordings: John Yao’s Triceratops – How We do ? ]

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release date: 18th October 2019

“Boldly diverse, Yao’s compositions cut across the swath of contemporary jazz’s field, [amalgamating] a surprising range of styles and periods—sometimes within a single composition.” – Franz Matzner, All About Jazz

“John Yao makes it clear he’s not content to stand still.” – Jeff Potter, DownBeat