Jon Irabagon – Recharge the Blade

Back in 2008 as Jon Irabagon prepared for his first album as a leader, his plans were as simple as they were ambitious: to take his main three horns in the alto, tenor and soprano saxophones and compose an album for each, focusing on the monumental figures in the history of each instrument. Inevitably the eclectic Filipino-American saxophonist, who later that year would win the Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition, added more strictures: while the records would be mostly comprised of original material inspired by the great masters, with a focus on group interaction and improvisation, each album would also feature one reworked standard, one movement or segment packed with as many musicians as Irabagon could fit into the recording studio, and one track of unfettered guitar shredding.

Jon Irabagon’s Outright! duly landed in the spring of 2008, with the saxophonist playing alto alongside Russ Johnson, Kris Davis, Eivind Opsvik and Jeff Davis as they summoned a raucous version of the Dizzy Gillespie hit ‘Groovin’ High’, while the ‘Outright! Theme’ played by the 30-piece Original Outright! Jass Band shuffled between New Orleans rag and sheer cacophony. Next up for Outright! Unhinged in 2012 a fresh ensemble of Ralph Alessi, Jacob Sacks, John Hébert and Tom Rainey joined the fray, with Irabagon on tenor flitting between Latinate licks, slippery funk and free jazz abstractions, on an album which paid tribute to the likes of Dewey Redman, John Coltrane and the stomping Arnett Cobb and served to inaugurate (alongside the stonking second volume of I Don’t Hear Nothin’ but the Blues) his self-published label Irabbagast Records.

Yet the lissome soprano proved less easy to bend or tame, and it was only the onset of the coronavirus pandemic with its enforced spells of isolation and surfeits of time which allowed Irabagon to settle down with renewed focus on the instrument. So the third instalment of the Outright! series Recharge the Blade finally arrives, with Irabagon on the soprano saxophone joined by Ray Anderson on the trombone, Matt Mitchell on piano and synths, Chris Lightcap on the acoustic and electric bass and Dan Weiss on drums, while Ben Monder plays guitar on a revised version of ‘Quorum Call’, and Chris Cash returns to add percussion, guitar and programming to the louche closer ‘Welcome Parade’ which features by my own count the 60 transcontinental and multigenerational members of The Trans-Atlantic Luxury Cruise Line Cigar Lounge All-Stars. Before that it’s on tracks like ‘Blood Eagle’, ‘Nightshade’ and the title track where Irabagon and crew showcase their sense of swing and post-bop syllogisms, while ‘Trés Bechet’ languors in an amber haze as with wit and panache the saxophonist concludes his trilogy.