In awesomely unexpected news, Jon Irabagon has won this year's Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition. "Unexpected" not because Jon isn't a great player -- he clearly is -- but because he's not the kind of jazz musician who normally wins stuff like the Monk Competition. To give you an idea, one of his regular projects is a "terrorist bebop band" called Mostly Other People Do The Killing. (Sorry if I just got you placed on the no-fly list, Jon.)
Incidentally, MOPDTK have a CD release show at Zebulon on Nov. 1, if you wanna check out the freshly crowned Young Lion in the flesh.
Peter Hum (Thriving on a Riff) has YouTube video of the three finalists. Here's a different clip of Jon playing with MOPDTK in Philly, which features an extended unaccompanied solo:
MOPDTK is cool. I heard about it from Peter Evans last year, I think. More grist to your "the jazz wars are over" thread, I guess.
Posted by: mwanji | 27 October 2008 at 03:48 PM