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Jazz Articles about Aaron Irwin
About Aaron Irwin
Instrument: Saxophone, alto
Related Articles | Concerts | Albums | Photos | Similar ToTake Five From Aaron Irwin
by AAJ Staff
Meet Aaron Irwin Critically acclaimed saxophonist, multi-woodwind player, and composer Aaron Irwin is a compelling voice of his generation. Known as a “lyrical alto saxophonist and a compelling original composer" (The New Yorker), Irwin is a sought-after commodity in the New York jazz scene. Aaron Irwin celebrates his latest project: (After) (Adhyâropa Records, 2024). His ninth album, it is a collection of works inspired by poetry as interactions between sound and verse weave together melancholy, effervescence, and at times, anxiety ...
read moreBobby Kapp: Synergy
by Jack Bowers
The subtitle of Synergy is “Bobby Kapp plays the music of Richard Sussman," which is true to some extent. To be more precise, drummer Kapp is at the heart of a septet, conducted by Scott Reeves, that features composer Sussman at the piano. So, while “Bobby Kapp plays" is technically correct, it does not represent the whole picture. What is more, this is a group with a rather unusual front line of violin, clarinet, tenor sax and French ...
read moreMike Fahie Jazz Orchestra: Urban(e)
by Dan Bilawsky
There's a rocky history surrounding jazz-classical hybrids. But, in truth, that has little to do with any potential incompatibility. Instead, it's usually misguided maneuvering and/or an excessive show of dominant traits from one side or the other that mars said unions. When done right a wedding of those worlds can truly birth brilliance. Just listen to Urban(e) for proof. Noted trombonist, composer, arranger and educator Mike Fahie's unabashed love for classical music and jazz is clear and ...
read moreMike Fahie Jazz Orchestra: Urban(e)
by Jack Bowers
Most Western music, irrespective of its origin and premise, inhabits the same harmonic, chordal and rhythmic universe. So it should not be surprising that classical music, in the hands of a skilled arranger, can be readily recast in a jazz idiom, even one that is housed within a big-band framework. On Urban(e), trombonist Mike Fahie's New York-based Jazz Orchestra braves that challenge, quickening Fahie's translations of works by Frederic Chopin, Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy, Bela Bartok, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky and ...
read moreAaron Irwin Quartet: A Room Forever
by Neri Pollastri
Quartetto dall'approccio molto cameristico questo messo assieme dal clarinettista e compositore statunitense, oggi di stanza a New York. Un camerismo che viene esaltato da un lato dalla formazione, priva di batteria, e dall'altro dalle ispirazioni extramusicali delle composizioni, che fanno riferimento ai racconti dello scrittore statunitense Breece D'J Pancake, morto suicida nel 1979 a soli ventisette anni. Non che le musiche di questo A Room Forever non abbiano un'autonomia rispetto ai racconti di Pancake da cui sono ispirate ...
read moreAaron Irwin Quartet: A Room Forever
by Budd Kopman
Reedman Aaron Irwin is a very ambitious composer and on his latest, A Room Forever, shows how to plumb emotional depths with subtlety and grace. The inspiration for this music is the short stories by Breece Dexter John Pancake, sometimes written Breece D'J Pancake, the spelling of which comes from a typo in the Atlantic Magazine. Pancake lived to be only twenty- six and died by his own hand; his stories focus on his native West ...
read moreVicious World: Plays the Music of Rufus Wainwright
by Andrew J. Sammut
Vicious World might have a field day on its tribute to the music of Rufus Wainwright, except the tunes are rarely that lighthearted. Let's just say the septet is moved to musical tears by the singer/songwriter's earnest melodies and bittersweet harmonies. Even that's putting it mildly. Anxious strings introduce Aaron Irwin's alto sax on the dejected “Going to a Town." “Natasha" pits the innocence of violin and clarinet against Matthew McDonald's bittersweet trombone, choreographing a beautiful, fragile ...
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