Jon Irabagon Quartet

Arts + Literature Laboratory welcomes The Jon Irabagon Quartet on Friday, October 18, 2024 at 7:30pm. Tickets $25 general admission or $20 student/ALL Member in advance online, or $30 at the door for everyone. Advance tickets available online at https://irabagonquartet.bpt.me.

The Jon Irabagon Quartet makes its midwestern debut for this tour, unveiling new originals and reworked standards while celebrating their recent release Recharge the Blade. The evening promises to bring familiarity as well as unpredictability in a celebration of both group interaction and unique and individual voices.

Jon Irabagon — mezzo soprano saxophone
Matt Mitchell — piano
Chris Lightcap — bass
Dan Weiss — drums

Jon Irabagon

First-generation Filipino-American Jon Irabagon (b. 1978, Chicago) has been influenced by the self-empowering and individualistic philosophies and aesthetic of the great AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) ensembles as well as the historic world-class tenor saxophone lineage from his hometown. Equally adept at composing for rising stars in new music and the most intricate modern jazz ensemble, Irabagon builds on this foundation by adding modern classical and late-period John Coltrane to his compositional base, focusing primarily on mixed chamber ensembles to take advantage of hand-chosen musicians' voices and attitudes.

After earning a Bachelor of Music from DePaul University, Irabagon continued his education by earning a Master of Arts from the Manhattan School of Music and completing post-graduate studies in the jazz program at Juilliard, where he received an Artist Diploma. However, Irabagon’s accomplishments do... Read More

Matt Mitchell

Matt Mitchell is a pianist, composer, and electronic musician interested in the intersections of various strains of acoustic, electric, composed, and improvised new music. He has released several forward-thinking, critically acclaimed, and influential albums as a leader on Pi Recordings, Screwgun

Records, and Out of Your Head Records, and together with Kate Gentile he runs Obliquity Records. He leads the ensemble Phalanx Ambassadors and co-leads Snark Horse with Kate Gentile, These and other bands he regularly presents feature many of the current foremost musicians and improvisers, including Patricia Brennan, Kim Cass, Kate Gentile, Jon Irabagon, Ava Mendoza, Miles Okazaki, Mariel Roberts, Sara Serpa, Sara Schoenbeck, Brandon Seabrook, Ches Smith, Chris Tordini, Anna Webber, Dan Weiss, and Miguel Zenon. He is an member of several significant and acclaimed creative music ensembles, including Dan Weiss’s Starebaby, Miles Okazaki’s Trickster, Ches Smith’s We... Read More

Chris Lightcap

Chris Lightcap is an accomplished bassist and composer with a wide-ranging performing and recording career. He has worked with Marc Ribot, Regina Carter, Craig Taborn, Glen Hansard, Mark Turner, John Medeski, Jason Moran, The Kronos Quartet, Tomasz Stanko, Chris Potter, Paul Motian, John Scofield, Dave Liebman, Paquito D’Rivera, Anthony Braxton, Joe Morris, Sheila Jordan, James Carter, Butch Morris, Ben Monder, Mary Halvorson, and many other artists. His has played on over 100 albums and as a bandleader/composer he has produced six critically acclaimed albums of original music.

Born and raised in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Chris played violin and piano before taking up the electric bass at fourteen. As a senior in high school he started to study the upright bass and the following year he enrolled at Williams College. During this period he studied bass, composition, classical performance, and improvisation with Milt Hinton, Cameron Brown, Robert Suderburg, Alvin... Read More

Dan Weiss

Three time Shifting Foundation grantee Dan Weiss has been hailed as one of the top five jazz drummers by The New York Times, and his large ensemble recording “Fourteen” made the top ten list of their best recordings of 2014. Weiss’s innovative drumming and forward-thinking compositions have been pushing musical limits for decades. Weiss’s intense study of jazz, classical Indian, contemporary classical, west African, and metal sets a musical platform that creates a sound that transcends conventional style or genre. His compositional trademarks are angular yet emotive melodies, complex through-composed drum parts, rhythmic cycles native to many non-western music, and melodic shapes drawing directly from the raga system found in Indian classical music.

He has released four recordings with his trio: “Now Yes When” (2006), “Timshel” (2011), “Utica Box” (2019), and “Dedication” (2022), which have been critically-acclaimed for their unique approach to song... Read More

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Arts + Literature Laboratory is located at 111 S. Livingston Street #100, Madison, Wisconsin, 53703.

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