Tomorrow night saxophonist Jon Irabagon will begin a four-night residency at The Stone in New York City. Recently Jon and I connected via video chat to talk about the upcoming shows and his two recent albums, Recharge the Blade (the next installation of his Outright series featuring Jon on soprano sax and a rhythm section of Matt Mitchell, Chris Lightcap, and Dan Weiss) and Survivalism (a solo soprillo album).

In addition to producing the albums himself and publishing it on his own Irrabagast label, Jon is also handling all the publicity for the records, which is how I heard about these two records. After listening — and because I’m in the midst of artist interviews for my book project — I reached back out to see if he might be interested in talking about the releases. We met online to chat about the records, some upcoming performances, his time in South Dakota during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, how he navigates the challenges of creating art outside of the mainstream jazz industry, and much more. Check it out below.

Those in the New York City area can hear Jon with four different ensembles during his upcoming residency at The Stone (April 24-27, 2024). More info on the performances is available here. More info on Irabagon is available on his website. All his recordings are available for purchase on his Bandcamp site.

…! …! …!

[Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and content. Jon also accepted my invitation to review the manuscript and elaborate on/revise his extemporized answers to my questions. I incorporated all of his suggestions into what’s published below.]

Mark Lomanno/TRoS (ML): I’ve enjoyed preparing for this interview because it gave me an opportunity to get to know your music a little bit better. I didn’t just listen to the [recent] albums that you sent but to some other stuff as well. I want to talk about these albums, but it’s also pretty serendipitous that you reached out to me now because I’m in the middle of research for a book. It’s an ethnography of jazz musicians. So after you reached out, I read some of your past interviews and listened to your albums and thought, “I think I want to talk to him about my book, too.” So this was definitely a case of my book project coming to me in a way as opposed to looking for things. So I thought that was really cool. Thank you for that.

Jon Irabagon (JI): Yeah, well, that’s great.

ML: I have some questions about some older records if you’re up for it, but I’m really engaged by your creative process and your worldview, the way that you approach the music that you put out and the concepts behind it. I’m intrigued; and I’ve been looking forward to the conversation for a while.

JI: That’s awesome.

ML: So my first question is about one of the people on the record [Recharge the Blade], Ray Anderson. [In the liner notes] you refer to him as “a spiritual guru,” and I just want to give you an opportunity to talk about what that means to you.

JI: I was in high school and into music, but didn’t think that it was possible to make a living. So I wasn’t on a career trajectory with music, but I loved Cannonball Adderley and Sonny Stitt. And I loved transcribing. Jazz band and my private lessons were my favorite part of the week. So I should have just admitted to myself way back then that I was gonna go down this music route.

I’ve been listening to Ray since I was in high school. And then, when I moved to New York and got to start playing with people like Barry Altschul and Mark Helias and Uri Caine (people who I have played with a lot), it turned out that he’s been playing with them for about 50 years. So there’s this long historical connection with the music that I grew up with and listened to, and with the musicians that I play with.

I’ve done several gigs with him where we’re both sidemen. I’ve always had great hangs afterwards. With his philosophy on music improvisation and the merging of playing standards and the free world and the funk world…he just embodies all of them as if the genres don’t even matter, really. I really connect with how he views improvisation and jazz which includes a whole bunch of different things. When I was listening to him play on tunes like “Love Me or Leave Me” when I was in high school, I thought, “This is a great standards-playing trombonist,” but, lo and behold, he spans the gamut throughout the whole improvisational spectrum. So I guess that’s what I mean by my “spiritual guru.” And after the [recording] session [for Recharge the Blade] we went out for steaks and had a great hang. He’s just inspiring to be around, and daring rhythmically and melodically, and harmonically. Just everything is there so he’s one of my inspirations musically.

ML: Do you want to say any more about what resonates with you about his philosophy of improvisation?

JI: Oh, yeah, great question. I love that there are no limits. There are no boundaries and everything is on the table, which means whatever choices he makes in the moment are the pure ones. I’m trying to do that as well. He’s just achieved the level of purity and clarity that I would love to get to.

ML: I wonder how much of that has to do with what he plays; and how much of it has to do with how he listens when he plays.

JI: I think the listening part is a lot of it because I’ve definitely done some free improv gigs with him where whatever his direction is will change on a dime. If the drummer plays something different, or if the piano player starts implying a different direction, he’ll get there ahead of them.

Actually I’m actually doing a quintet gig of free improv music this April. I’m going back to New York and I’m playing a week at The Stone. I have a week at The Stone most years thanks to John Zorn and I have one in April. One of the nights is my Trio with Mark Helias and Barry Altschul that used to tour a bunch. Last year when I did The Stone week, we added Uri Caine to the trio; we made it the Jon Irabagon Trio Plus One. And it went really well, so we’re actually putting that record out this April. (Maybe the official release dates is gonna be over the Summer, but I’m trying to get it ready for this Stone week.) So in April we’re gonna have the trio plus Uri again. We’re gonna add Ray to those guys. Those guys have played together forever: Barry and I have a trio with Mark; and Ray’s played with all of them for a really long time. I’m blessed to have gotten a chance to play with all those guys in different contexts, too. So to get to see Ray in a free improv setting with people he’s played with for 50-60 years, and then with me having different histories each of them, I’m really excited about it.

ML: There’s one more credit line that I want to ask you about: “the Trans-Atlantic Luxury Cruise Lines Cigar Lounge All Stars”…

JI: It’s pretty good, right?

ML: … and, you know, I read it and thought, “I’m pretty sure this is a joke; but, just in case it isn’t, I should ask about it.” I mean, whether or not it’s a joke, I’d like to know more…

JI: So the Recharge the Blade album that just came out is the third in a trilogy set of Outright records. The first Outright record was my very first record that I ever did as a leader – maybe in 2008 – and I was primarily playing a lot of alto saxophone back then. There were several ideas that were encapsulated in that first record; and I wanted to make sure to do [that concept] three times: one for alto, and one for tenor, which I was also playing a lot because I’m from Chicago. There’s a very rich tenor saxophone history for Chicago. So it’s not necessarily like this right now, but at the time when I was growing up and playing in Chicago, if you were gonna be playing alto, most of what you were gonna play were gonna be big band [performances]. You could sneak in other kinds of gigs but at the time I was like, “oh you want to be a saxophone player that’s working in town. You got to play tenor.” So I was a Cannonball and Sonny Stitt disciple. So I had a tenor just to play in Chicago. So I wanted to do this alto Outright record and tenor one and I thought, “well, I’ll also do a soprano one at some point.” So I finally did the soprano record. It’s been 14 years or something for me to get it done.

But some of the things that happened on the first Outright record that I wanted to make sure to keep happening was to rearrange a standard in a really unique way. I wanted a guitar shredder feature on each record. So I was able to get that. All of them are mostly original compositions that pay homage to my heroes on those instruments. So on the alto one, there’s a Steve Coleman track. There’s a Charlie Parker is track on there. On the tenor record Unhinged there’s a John Coltrane tribute. And this Outright record, Recharge the Blade, has a Sidney Bechet tribute track. There’s some Steve Lacy references.

The other thing that happens on all three of the Outright records is that for one of the songs there’s a gigantic ensemble. And for the first two records I was able to get 30 to 45 people in the recording studio. I have pictures; it was a blast. We had pizza and beers. We were hanging out and we would do a couple takes of this thing; people could hang out. So I happened to record this third album during the pandemic so there was no opportunity to get people in the studio. I didn’t even want to go down that road, but I wanted to wrap up the trilogy correctly. So I sent out an email and asked a bunch of friends. I might have even put it on Facebook: “Okay, does anyone who sees this want to contribute an improvisation to this record that’s coming out? And I think I had about 60 responses, so there’s 60 people on this track. And the track starts out as a smooth jazz tribute. When I was coming up with the name for it, I didn’t know how serious I wanted to make it. It does start out as a smooth jazz track but then the 60 people come in and the track ends very differently. So I wanted it to demonstrate the fact that they’re on this Smooth Jazz – you know that Smooth Jazz Cruise that happens every year? – like that. And maybe the cruise meets an untimely end. I am very proud of the track. I’ve listened to it dozens of times. I think it’s great.

ML: But over a decade to do the soprano record – was there any particular reason? Did it have to do with the instrument? There are plenty of stories throughout jazz history of alto and and tenor players… Well, let’s just say it this way: the number of people who double on soprano and it sounds really good is relatively small. There are lots of stories about struggles with the soprano. (Let alone the soprillo that we’re going to talk about in a second.) So did the delay in recording have something to do with that, or was it another reason?

JI: That probably is by far the largest reason for me. I love playing all the different saxophones. I have a mezzo-soprano saxophone record. I have a sopranino solo record. I’m playing bass sax. I’ve got a double-bass saxophone record coming out maybe next year. So I love the whole range of saxophones and I’m trying to do a solo record on every different-size saxophone. Even with me spending time on all these different instruments, for me the soprano’s the most evil one. It’s even more evil than the soprillo. There’s something about it that is aloof and untamable and just…off. Hats off to people like Sam Newsome who decided, “you know what? this challenge is worth it. This is what my career is gonna be, dealing specifically with this unruly, impossible instrument.” So I have nothing but respect for Sam or Steve Lacy who want to become specialists. And people like Steve Wilson or Coltrane who could double on the thing and sound so convincing. Hats off to them.

So for me like part of [the delay in recording] was that I started getting involved in other projects: spending time touring around with Mary Halvorson in the interim and Dave Douglas. Barry Altschul’s bands and some of my other projects. But it was always like this spectre in the back of my mind: “I gotta come back to that.” And [working on this project was] one of the few positive things [that came] out of the pandemic. The night before New York shut down in March 2020 my wife and I and our super-young daughter at the time, we went to the corner store to get a six pack of toilet paper, a roll of paper towels, and a gallon of milk; and it was 30 bucks. And we thought, “Man, they are price-gouging already and the City hasn’t even shut down.” So my wife said, “You know, if they shut down tomorrow then let’s get out of here.” So they shut down the next day and we flew to Rapid City, South Dakota, which is where my in-laws were living at the time. We ended up living out there for eight months, for almost the rest of 2020.

And one of the few positive things that came out of it was I was able to have some [practice] time during the day. I found this canyon about five minutes from the house. I was practicing outside in this canyon seven days a week for six or seven months. And there were no gigs. There were no recording sessions. There was nothing to memorize or prepare for. So I thought, “It’s awesome to have this time. I love being outside in nature and throwing my sounds off these canyon walls and seeing what happens. There’s no one around. So it’s just awesome to have these four or five hours every day. What am I gonna do?” So I worked out things on time, compositions that would come into my head and record them. But then a couple weeks in I thought, “You know what? This is the time for me to get my soprano together.” So without the pandemic this third Outright record might still just be bugging me, but I was able to get [my soprano skills] to a point where it was acceptable to me.

ML: That makes a lot of sense. So I’m gonna ask you about the Canyon in the Black Hills. I hear you with working on your sound on the instrument and feeling comfortable with it. Is it also – and this is partly meant as a tongue-and-cheek question – is it the ghosts of Bechet and Coltrane and all these greats on the soprano sax haunting [you]? It’s such a difficult instrument, right? You have this legacy that you’re plugging into by recording on this instrument. Is that part of it or is it just an individual [challenge] for you?

JI: For me the idea [was that] I wanted to force myself to write for all three of the Outright records. I wanted to force myself to write in directions that I might not normally think about. And so the song on Recharge the Blade that’s dedicated to Sidney Bechet called “Trés Bechet”… I could never make myself write like that unless there was a direction to do so for me. It’s kind of a compositional exercise, but it’s also like, “Man, what are the nuts and bolts of what I love about Bechet or Coltrane or Threadgill or Braxton?” I’m trying to understand my version of how I interpret where they’re coming from. So the compositions come that way.

Actually each of the quintets on the three records are all different people on purpose: the musicians are all different. And it didn’t necessarily start out that way but that’s how it turned out. And so the musicians are different but the philosophy is that I’m going to write these tunes with the spirits of these masters in mind. But [also] that I’m trying to get as much group improvisation and interaction at all times. I think the goal is a little extreme because if you turn on jazz radio the goal isn’t group interaction or improvisation all the time. It’s a “head, solos, maybe a shout chorus” kind of thing, and each person gets featured individually. I’m more interested for the most part in having everybody have their say all the time. So in order to present that in some kind of listenable way, it can’t happen 100% of time, but I want it most of the time. Okay, so it’s a very extreme version of improvisation and quote-unquote jazz.

ML: Again predicated on good listening right like we were talking about with Ray [Anderson].

JI: Yeah, so it’s listening and surrounding myself with musicians who not only listen, but also have really strong individual, artistic voices. It’s not enough to be able to just read anything. Or just to have a knowledge of all the different styles that I love to tap into. For me it’s hiring people like Matt Mitchell and Dan Weiss and Chris Lightcap and Ben Monder – you hear them and within two notes, you’re thinking, “Man, that’s them.” And they’ve processed their whole philosophical idea of what music means to them and what it means in their lives and you can hear it come through their history. That’s what I’m trying to get to myself.

ML: I want to ask you about the concept behind the album, which is funny, but dark.

JI: These can coexist, right?

ML: Right, yeah. So I don’t want to take it too far to the level of pun, but I’m reading through the narrative around the record and the first thing that I thought of was the figures-of-speech that are embedded in the language that we use to talk about playing jazz music or improvising: instruments are “axes” and if you play really well, then you’re “killin’.” So are you trying to point at that? Or to carry the idea of this figure-of-speech all the way through? There are certainly histories of violence within jazz music: [the murder of] Lee Morgan, and also [the work] that Teri Lynn Carrington is doing at Berklee shining a light on issues related to gender violence and inequality. You’re pretty explicit about current national and international politics as a reason why you chose this angle [with the album concept], but are you trying to also call it out within the jazz world? Or is it only in dialogue with cultural and governmental politics?

JI: Yeah, that’s a really awesome question. In this particular case we were exiled in Rapid City, South Dakota, and Trump did a rally at Mount Rushmore on July 3rd that year. And then the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally [a COVID-19 super spreader event] happened about 30 miles from us in August of that year; and then, lo and behold, come late September/early October South Dakota became the worst place per capita on the planet for COVID but lots of people there were still saying that COVID was a hoax. So at some point during that Summer when all that was going on, and the government response to COVID was being botched, I got depressed with the situation as I think many people did. And I was just thinking, “Man, humans are really ingenious about the way that they kill each other. It’s a really morbid thing that people have come up with — In history most cultures have these incredible (in the worst sense of the word), these incredible ways that people kill each other or torture each other to get information or just to make a statement. That got me really depressed. Some of these were just to try these different forms of torture, but there were other devices that just killed. So, for better for worse, I went down this rabbit hole where I was researching different torture devices just to pass the time. During lockdown I’m sure that my browser history at that time was gonna get me flagged or something like that, but it didn’t last that long but I went through this period [and thought], “Man, okay, these are crazy.” I kept a little list of the most fascinating or ingenious ones.

And so I realized I was getting my couple hours in every day in the Canyon and thought, “at the end of this is when I have to do that soprano record because, otherwise, I’m just not gonna spend this much time on soprano. So cool, if I gotta do that then I’m gonna need music for it.” So I started listening to Sidney Bechet and Branford Marsalis soprano records and [lots more] and thought, “I’m gonna model each of these tunes after these people. And I need a fast, circus-type tune here. I need a ballad. I love Weather Report and I love Wayne’s soprano in Weather Report. Let me do one of those.” And, “what I’m gonna call all of these things?” And so as the different track vibes or tempos started flowing in my head. Not only did they come from X-Y-or-Z great soprano player, but also they were slightly informed by some of these torture devices that I thought were ingenious. Like “Trés Bechet,” that song is really a trip. There were little scenes of trebuchet drawings – destroying castles and stuff – in my head when I was sleeping. The “blood eagle” is a really evil Scandinavian torture device. It just so happened that I was going through this super-dark period and one way to flush that through my system was the “Recharge the Blade Suite” which is the majority of the record. It’s the prism for both these crazy torture devices, but also my favorite soprano players, which maybe, in the back of my mind — since I think the soprano is the most torturous and evil of the saxophones — it was meant to be that way.

ML: Okay, I have one more question about this record. There’s a connection to the circus and – I don’t want to say “showmanship,” but – a kitsch-like intrigue with this album. Your Doctor Quixotic album is one that sticks out to me [as related conceptually]. There’s definitely humor here and a sort of fascination with the darker side of humanity. Do you see that as at all connected to the exoticism and the sideshow aspect of what you explored on the Doctor Quixotic album?

JI: Yeah, like I said about Ray [Anderson]: he’s gotten to the clarity of what he wants to say and I’m trying to achieve that. And, as more and more of these records go by, I’m able to figure out that this is an enduring part of my composition or my improvisation. And you nailed it. I love the circus; I love the spectacle of it. I love that. Once I went to the Coney Island Freak Show with my cousins from London and, at the time, their daughter was eight. A performer was talking to us with a hammer and nail in his hands and then he just nailed the hammer into his nose – like all the way in – and then just kept talking. The eight-year-old freaked out and she stood up and – she couldn’t help it – yelled, “Are you mental?!” to the guy. People started cracking up and even the guy cracked a smile. He’s trying to stay in character; and I love that. I love magic shows. I love comedy shows. Just the what-ifs, the possibilities. That’s exciting to me. And what actually does happen is cool, but, oh man, “what if this happens!?”

So I love leaving my compositions open to have that angle. Some versions of the songs on Recharge are all completely different from when we did the tour leading up to the recording date. Whatever version I got in the studio was the one that was going to be the official documented version, but some versions we played out in South Carolina were actually some of my favorite versions.

But, yeah, fascination with the dark – with darkness – and adding humor to that… You know, you get old enough and you go enough places, and you’re the victim of really stupid stuff that happens. So much racist shit, engrained throughout every culture. And the fact that people can’t just get over that stuff is really depressing honestly. Everybody’s got their own coping mechanisms when they have to deal with X-Y-or-Z stupidity; and, you know, I have to find a way to laugh my way through dumb stuff. And so I think I’ve always also been a prankster with my family, and my friends. I love that; I love the interaction – definitely nothing ever malicious, but you try to keep fun going in the air. So I think that just naturally seeps into my music. It’s not something that I’m purposely striving for but, when it’s not there, I feel like the music is flat. And that’s both as a leader and as a sideman. So I try to create that when I’m playing in other people’s bands, too, if that’s allowed in the parameters of their music. But it’s definitely encouraged in mine.

ML: I appreciate the thoughtfulness of that answer. I was going to ask you if this was like thrill-seeking. Like musical base-jumping. Or, like – I have a buddy who was into body modification and would do suspensions – people hanging from hooks from the ceiling. So, as you started to talk, I was thinking, “There’s definitely an aspect of thrill-seeking and fascination with other people – of pushing the limits of possibility,” which has obvious connections to improvisation, especially in live contexts. But as you continued, I see some of the other uses of humor and also this idea of pranksterism. These are fundamental parts of making jazz music that tie into musical traditions coming from marginalized communities as well.

JI: Yes, that’s totally right. If you’re constantly being ostracized for something – it doesn’t even matter what it is; and I believe that almost everybody is a minority in some way, so it’s just a matter of if if they’re called out on it constantly or have to watch their brethren get killed or beat up for no reason – that kind of shit, you have to deal with that in a certain way. You can be eternally angry about it, which a lot of people do, but that’s probably not the healthiest way to go about it. And dark humor is one coping mechanism that I use. But, yeah, every time I try to play – whether it’s solo, or with a group of mine, or a group that I’ve been lucky enough to join – I’m always thrill-seeking. So you’re totally right.

For me in 2024 in jazz or improvised music, there’s been so much great jazz made already in a certain mold – like perfect and wrapped with a little bow in a box and it’s awesome. I love that stuff. And I’ve studied it and I’ve given my life to that stuff. But in 2024 what kind of music can we make that honors that stuff but includes all the things that we’ve been going through the last 15, 20, 30 years? It has to be alive. It has to be. There has to be an element of living that’s going on with [the music] for me. And I love people who play traditional music; it’s awesome for them. But, for me, I don’t feel settled when there’s no thrill-seeking. And you can feel it on the bandstand when the primary goal isn’t to take risks. You just know that; you feel it. You can either continue to be a part of [repeating traditional approaches] or you can search for other things. But, like I said at the beginning, I love playing music with the people that I get to play with. And so, even if I’m on a gig where the thrill-seeking or the risk-taking isn’t there, I can still focus on what I love about this person, or that person, or what they’re playing. So I love being involved in all situations whether the parameters [for risk-taking] are super-small or if they’re completely wide-open and try to find the positive in all of that. And again that goes back to being in marginalized in society. It’s all in it. You totally nailed it. It’s completely interconnected.

ML: I wonder – and this ties into the Doctor Quixotic album as well – is there a critique of the music industry and the mainstream jazz world in here? In terms of both this idea of the sideshow and the exoticism from that album, but also with Recharge the Blade there’s the tongue-and-cheek nod to Kenny G and smooth jazz. There’s a long history of the industry pushing people out or treating them in unfair or inequitable or even violent ways – especially in terms of jazz and other Black musics.

JI: Yeah, I mean, that’s the norm I think for mainstream, corporation-driven music. So when I won the Thelonious Monk competition back in 2008 I was able to do a Concord record [The Observer]. That came as part of the Prize. I’m super proud of that record that came out in 2009. But from day one of dealing with them, I could tell it was coming from a completely different viewpoint than what I want to do with my creative life. It was very “check all the boxes” business-wise. “Get all this done.” A lot of “hurry up and wait.” And then because it wasn’t musicians or artists who were in charge of anything – it was people in a boardroom or something like that – so many things got screwed up every step of the way. I should have written everything down – made a post about it – but then I would get killed or something. But something was screwed up literally every step of the way. From the beginning of the process till the record was released and even afterwards, something got messed up. And so that was impetus for me starting my own label. I thought, “Man, the kind of music that I’ve been drawn to, the kind of music that I want to make, is not gonna be mainstream or on the radio anyways.” And I’ve long [since] come to terms with that. Years ago. And that’s totally cool because that’s not why I’m in the music…I’m not even in the music business. I don’t even really care about it. Yeah, from that experience – but also knowing the histories… Look, at this point, it’s so well documented how screwed musicians get over and over and over again. And so either luckily or unluckily for me, it’s not even for me to decide: the kind of music that I like doesn’t even have anything to do with mainstream stuff.

But occasionally I’ll get an email from a random person in, like, South America or something, [who writes something like] “your music means a lot to me.” For me that’s way more important than having a million likes. It’s important for me to be true to my own vision of music whether ten people listen to it, or zero people, or a thousand, or a hundred thousand. That’s not really up to me. But what is up to me is to just continue to make art. That is the closest thing that I can get to at the moment. And yeah, I can see where you’re coming from with Doctor Quixotic being like a sideshow and running alongside mainstream culture, but I guess I never really think of it like that. It was more like “These are things that interest me.” That there’s something more alive or vibrant about these non-mainstream things to me. I don’t know why that is. Maybe part of it is because [those outside the mainstream] have the freedom to really say what they want to say without having to dilute themselves to get likes or followers.

ML: Sure, that makes sense.

Could we maybe pivot to Survivalism? This is an incredible record and there’s so much to it. Let’s just start with the location. So you’re in the Black Hills and I wanted to ask you this when you brought it up earlier. You mentioned enjoying playing outside; the sound that you were getting when playing outside: Was that just an aesthetic experience around acoustics? Or was it like connected to the location in nature? The Black Hills is a hugely important site, the site of creation for the Lakota [Nation]. So there are deep connections there between the environment and spiritual practice that are very much rooted in the natural environment. Is that something that was on your mind when you were playing in these spaces?

JI: When I first got there and realized that we were at the edge of the Black Hills, I started doing a ton of research about it. And I had some superficial knowledge of all that you just mentioned, but I really jumped in on some of it. It’s fascinating. I didn’t necessarily think that way while I was out there every day for five hours, but there was definitely something special about being out there. I was out there for seven months; and I’d go from maybe 8:30 [in the morning] to about 1 pm. Not once was it too cold to go out there; and I started in March and I ended in October. So not once did I have to miss it because it was too cold. Not once did I get rained out. Even if there were clouds, [the rain] would hold off and then pour later. I would sit on this rock that came to be my third home out there. I would just check out the landscape. And it was a life-changing experience to get to do that day after day and see how over the course of the seasons the view changed and the trees change. I felt some of that [the connection between the environment and spiritual practice] and I interpreted my own way. There is something special about that area.

I recorded a solo tenor record in that canyon. Almost all Charlie Parker. It’s called Bird with Streams. I wasn’t even gonna [record that album] but, when I was about to leave and move to Chicago at the end of 2020, I thought, “I have to document this his time and my hundreds of hours in this Canyon and with this land.” I felt a very strong kinship with it. More than one time while I was out there there’d be some hikers and they thought I was Lakota – thought that I was Native American hanging out on my land. I definitely felt that that’s a very special part of America.

ML: And you did Bird with Streams, but also Rising Sun out there?

JI: So I composed some of Rising Sun while I was out there, but that was around the Trump rally. A couple of weeks later the government started opening up the national parks and so my wife and I said, “When the parks first open up, let’s go on a two or three week road trip. Because maybe people won’t be out there and we can still feel safe and distanced.” We had never explored this part of the country before, so we went through Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Colorado, and Utah. We did a huge loop through several national parks. And it was incredible. And so the Rising Sun record was written while I was in South Dakota. I bought this little Casio keyboard at the thrift store. And I wrote those tunes on this tiny two-octave thing. So I composed parts of the tunes in the canyon – some of the melodies…whatever came into my fingers during improvisations that I happen to be recording. I kept some of those but a lot of the writing for Rising Sun (which has the same rhythm section as Recharge the Blade) happened at night on this keyboard when my kid was in bed. But yeah, I got a lot of inspiration from all angles while I was in South Dakota. It was very interesting.

So my father-in-law, he’s like the unofficial mayor of Rapid City. He knows everybody out there. He can glad-hand everybody and he’s been in that area his whole life, has a lot of connections. So near the end [of my time in South Dakota] I asked [him], “Hey, do you know any other super weird places out here? Really unique South Dakota places? Because western South Dakota is very interesting.” He’s said, “Yeah, actually my best friend knows this widow of a cattle rancher who owns 500 igloos. I think they were munitions bunkers from one of the wars and they just left them there and she inherited the land.” So I said, “Wait, what’s going on?! Your best friend knows this person?” “Yeah,” he said, “I’ll set it up for you.”

So one of my last weeks that I was out there he and I drove to the extreme southwest tip of South Dakota to this town called Igloo. And we met this lady and she gave us a tour of her private land – it’s cattle grazing land. And she owns over half of these 800+ munitions bunker igloos the government built in the ’40s to prepare for World War II. They put millions of tons of ammunition in these bunkers. [They chose that location because] it’s in the central part of the United States, so they could get to any part of the US within a day. And [at the time when the bunkers were built] there were very few people there. So that the casualties would be limited should a disaster happen. So again the darkness plays into this whole thing, right? That’s an inescapable truth of it: “Oh, it’s the central location. And also we don’t really care about the lives that are here. So we’re gonna build them here.” They built 800 or so of these igloos; and they’re just there now because they used all the ammunition in the Vietnam War and then they just decommissioned the place because they’d been around for 30 years. So they’re just there – these rolling hills of munitions bunkers. And so we got to know her and talk to her a little bit. She gave us the story and I asked, “If I come back here in a year or two, could I record a solo saxophone record here?”. And she responded, “Whoa, why would you want that?! Okay. Yeah. Sure.” So she took us into one of them and it had the concrete ceiling but the floor was still dirt. There were mounds of dirt and a cattle carcass in the back corner. Then I clapped my hands in this thing and, because the floor was just dirt, the echo was strange and unique, really extreme. And I thought, “I have to record it.” This is still so fascinating to me. This is thrill-seeking a location for my record. It was the strangest; the story is amazing to me. It got me excited.

It turns out that Tom Brokaw was a resident of Igloo as a child. There were several thousand people who lived in this whole area. It was a thriving community because they were building these munition bunkers and bringing people in. There’s a school. There’s a post office, basketball court, everything. So, yeah, I thrill-sought this location; and she [the landowner] was gracious enough. And we were going back to that area for my wife’s sister’s wedding the next summer – around a year later – and I got in touch with her. She said, “Yeah, you can spend the day here.” And so that’s where this soprillo saxophone record Survivalism was recorded.

ML: Okay, so, with the historical context that you just provided, there’s this thriving community that coheres around this idea of the Apocalypse, right? Presumably they’re building some of the munitions that are being stored and, at the same time, like you said, if there is a catastrophe then all of the people around there will be killed because they’ve already been deemed expendable. Is that right?

JI: Yes.

ML: And now there’s a similar sort of vibe for the people that are living there and choosing to buy these bunkers. It’s this notion – sorry to make a pun but I’m thinking of the jazz tune “Alone Together” – like “we’ll be alone together during the Apocalypse.” So it seems to have come back, as if part of what drives the interest in people buying up these bunkers and occupying them is a nostalgia for the Igloo community – like they want a sense of belonging in this place should everything go to shit. And this idea is one of the reasons that the record fascinated me so much. The idea of creation and destruction cohabitating. And not just cohabitating but almost dependent on one another, which is really cognitively dissonant…

JI: Yeah.

ML: …which is why to me this instrument and the way that you chose to approach it…this whole idea of finding your sound and finding – not your level of comfort but a way of expressing yourself – finding your voice in this space made so much sense. Dissonance and difficulty and struggle are all part of making this record in this space.

JI: Yeah, when I got permission to do the record, I thought, “Okay, so which of these 12 saxophones do I want to make a solo record for? Which the right one?” And you just nailed it: the instrument told me right then and there. This album is the soprillo one. I mean, there’s no other choice really. And it’s, yeah, the synergy of everything the way it came together: the desolation, the impossibility of the instrument and the place. It was eerie being out there by myself for a whole day. It was really strange, but again it was a thrill to get to do it. And then I was on Cloud Nine for five days afterwards before I got mad, thinking “Yeah, I don’t know how this record’s gonna turn out. I need a bunch of editing to put it all together.” But to have gotten to do that is why I give my life to this music.

And again, what’s the market for a solo soprillo record? First of all, the market for a solo saxophone record is pretty low. And for a solo soprillo record? Even lower. But it’s also probably even lower still with a name like Survivalism and having it recorded in some bunker. Maybe five people will listen to it; but for some reason I was on Cloud Nine for a long time afterwards because I thought, “Man, this is exactly why I decided to dedicate myself to making music for a living 20 years ago.”

ML: Earlier, I asked you about the Recharge the Blade album and the ghosts of Bechet, Coltrane, and these other soprano greats. When you were in the [munition bunker] spaces, you said that it felt strange. Was it a sense of haunting or was it a sense of the aloneness, being confronted with your isolation and the problem of having to work out how to play the instrument?

JI: Yeah, that was tough, too. From prepping this record I have a newfound respect for trumpet players because [the soprillo sax is] in the trumpet range and it basically behaves like how a trumpet does. I would go to finger a note and a completely different note would come out. And trumpet players have to deal with that all the time. That kind of thing doesn’t happen on tenor all that much. “Oh man, this is the trumpet of saxophones.”

But yeah, it was a desolate area. Preparing for this record was really depressing because I was upset thinking, “How am I gonna talk about this in the liner notes?” But I was dedicated to doing it. Now, I have about eight months to prep a record: what am I gonna do on this instrument? It won’t listen to me. I play a note and the wrong one comes out. It was very frustrating so for a while I would try to play passages that were impossible over and over again just to try to get it going. And this instrument does not want to do that. So I had to change my improv and saxophone worldview to be like, “Okay, well, this is part of the struggle.” It’s part of the instrument. The impossibility of it is part of the instrument for me. There is a great classical soprillo saxophone album out and it’s incredible, super smooth and flowing and beautiful. The instrument doesn’t quite say that when I play it.

So then after several months, I found a lake near my house here; for a while I was able to go out there and practice. So I brought this soprillo out to this lake and I’m practicing out there and thinking, “Okay, buddy, what do you want to play?”; and I would just try to go along with it. Try to see what would it [the soprillo] want to do. And it wants to do completely different things than the sopranino or the mezzosoprano or tenor. So each of these different-sized horns are pulling me in different directions, which is why I want to spend time on all of them because eventually – hopefully – I can have my own voice on all of those different horns, and have them all a part of the gumbo. I want them all thrown in together. And they’re just different ways of trying to get to something new for myself.

It’s definitely a long-term strategy and I hope I can see it through. But this soprillo [record] was definitely challenging. It made me come at music in a different way. Now when when I’m playing alto, tenor, or my other main instruments I’m thinking, “what is the horn wanting from me? What directions? What can I do that’s not forcing this horn to not play things that it doesn’t want to play?” I’m trying to be more honest with my improvising now; and I think that’s a direct result of having to struggle through [the soprillo record].

ML: You’re giving me things to think about in relation to my own playing. I have chronic injury in both of my arms. And I’m a pianist. So that’s something that I struggle with on a day-to-day basis: wanting to make music but also not wanting to do myself physical harm. So is this question “what can my body do in relation to the instrument that I’m playing?”. And negotiating between the instruments that we play with and our bodies. And whether or not I had these injuries in my hand, that’s something that pianists have to deal with all the time because every time you come up to a piano, it’s a different instrument, so there’s always a process of negotiation.

JI: Yeah, yeah.

ML: I have one more question related to the album and it doesn’t really have much to do with what you were just talking about. So, I’m sorry if this is a non sequitur: you talked about something you called the Doom-Boom industry. We’ve been talking about thrill-seeking and the dark side of humanity. And you mentioned with Recharge the Blade the fascination with technologies of torture and violence. So this company [that’s managing the decommissioned munitions bunkers] is basically selling the Apocalypse to folks…

JI: That’s one of many for sure.

ML: Right, so it is literally capitalizing on people’s fear…

JI: Yeah.

ML: I wonder – and this is a very philosophical question – how does music (we could be specific and ask “how does the recording Survivalism…”) offer us an alternate way of dealing with the dread of the Apocalypse, one that’s not reliant on capitalism? You’ve been talking about this [during our conversation] – about making art recorded on your own label and recognizing that it can’t exist within the framework of the mainstream jazz industry. I believe for myself that not just the music but the communities that this music fosters actually offer us a sense of hope and can create new communities that are separate from those that marginalize and oppress others. For me this idea is very present in this record. So I’d love to hear your thoughts on this: how does the soprillo sax and this album help to create an alternative to what this company Vivos Xpoint is doing with selling these bunkers…

JI: Yeah, for me the whole process from the beginning – asking my father-in-law, finding this place, meeting her [the landowner], getting a tour, clapping my hands in that dirt-covered bunker, getting permission, prepping for the record, and then actually going out there and doing it and the editing – that gave me hope for the two years of the whole process. It’s very invigorating for me. It just showed me that, if I can keep my imagination going and combining it with my music – it’s continuing to learn musical things – [then] anything’s possible. So that kept me going for a while. Now my job as an artist is to create the most accurate representation of something that I can and get it out there. And hopefully musicians – actually non-musicians is even more important – hopefully some people out there find some interest in the music or latch onto something where they can relate to X-Y-or-Z in it. And if I can just find some of those people then I’m trying to create a sense a community there. And with just this record itself – or even the quintet record, which is ostensibly more listenable to the mainstream, [although] it’s still challenging music – there are people out there who are writing me (especially about Recharge the Blade) who are super into it. They love the fact that it’s taking risks and that I don’t really conform to anything throughout the records. So, there is a sense of community there. I feel like community is there as long as you stand behind your work and produce things that are honest and not just to get over. There’s a community there for almost anything – both good and bad. So I have to try to remember to stay on the good side of things.

ML: Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. I hope you have a great weekend and – remind me – it’s April when The Stone gig is coming up, right?

JI: Yeah, the last full week of April.

ML: Jon, it’s been a pleasure. I appreciate this very much.

JI: Alright, thanks, Mark.

…! …! …!