16 November 2012

Jon Irabagon in Bergen 2012




Here is a video recording featuring the excellent sax player Jon Irabagon. This was the final tune in a three-set performance at Dyvekes Vinkkjeller in downtown Bergen, arranged by Evans Jazz Club, recorded Friday 19 October during a brief tour of Western Norway. The line-up is

Jon Irabagon - alto sax
Norvald Dahl - piano
Axel Grieg - bass
Nils Drønen - drums

They did a bunch of self-penned tunes, but also some fine covers, as the one selected here, "Resolution" off John Coltrane's seminal "A Love Supreme". Jon's been regularly in town over the last few years, playing in different constellations, some local as on this night, but also visiting with Mostly Other People Do The Killing, a quartet which takes an unorthodox view of genre distinctions and which tends to name their tunes after small towns in Pennsylvania. Jon is similarly laissez faire about jazz dogma, playing inside or outside the mainstream as it suits him.



11 comments:

Andy said...

Yeh. Jon Irabagon is a monster. I met him when he came to London once and played a duet with Paul Dunmall. A very pleasant, humble man. Thanks for posting this.

glmlr said...

Is there any intelligent explanation for the utterly repulsive band-name "Mostly Other People Do The Killing"?

kinabalu said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNd4cuqzZPk&feature=related

B Dukoff said...

you might like to know that embedded Vimeo videos don't display in Internet Explorer 9, so you may want to provide a link to the source as well for those people who bought a computer with this annoying browser pre installed

glmlr said...

Sounds monumentally contemptuous to me. As a Norwegian Kinabalu, you learned more recently than most of us the obscene reality of killing.

This reminds me of the music website frequented mostly by “eai” lovers (electro-acoustic improvisation - Onkyo, Keith Rowe etc.).
It’s called “I Hate Music”.

Human stupidity is bottomless.




kinabalu said...

@B Dukoff: I know that IE9 has a tendency to block pop-up windows, but this can be deactivated. The videao displays fine in my IE9, but that said, I hardly ever use it, generally switching between three other browsers.

The direct link is as follows:

https://vimeo.com/51804162

kinabalu said...

@glmlr: My goodness, may I suggest that you are ever so slightly overreacting. I've chatted with most of the band members and I can assure you that they are reasonable and sensible chaps and would be as horrified over the killings you implicitly refer to as you are.

The name refers to a quote by Leon Theremin, the inventor of the instrument of the same name, meant as an exoneration of Stalin and his gulag (by one who managed to survive). The name signifies somewhat darkish ironically a deconstructive approach to the jazz tradition whereby anything is up for grabs, turned inside out, upside down, reversed or reengineered. They describe themselves as be-bop terrorists as well.

Make of it whatever you like, but don't take it too literally, please. It's all in the realm of aesthetics, not to be confused with reality as we know it.

Hey, have a (virtual) pint on me or a single malt or a Metaxa, whatever lightens up your mood in your corner of the world.

glmlr said...

OK, K, point taken. I'll hit a good bottle of red wine, and try to ignore any aesthetic uglinesses.

Andy said...

The band name Mostly Other People Do The Killing has led me to avoid them. If bands want to attract sensitive souls like me, a name like that is a bad marketing ploy.

Anonymous said...

It's hard to play this kind of jazz these days without being irrelevant.

kinabalu said...

Dunno about you, chum, but to me, Coltrane will forever remain relevant.