One of tenor saxophonist Jon Irabagon’s wildest projects is his “Don’t Hear Nothin’ But the Blues” series, where he plays freely for forty-seven minutes straight with drummer Mike Pride bringing perhaps only some basic concepts to the studio. Three years after Irabagon and Pride’s first installment in 2009, they added experimental metal guitarist Mick Barr in revisiting the “I Don’t Hear Nothin’ But the Blues” idea and Barr amped up the commotion quotient for I Don’t Hear Nothin’ But the Blues, Volume 2: Appalachian Haze.
The world has changed a lot in the last eight years; hell, it’s changed a lot in the last eight months. But Jon Irabagon and his cohorts reconvene for I Don’t Hear Nothin’ But the Blues Volume 3: Anatomical Snuffbox with a familiar scheme: a relentless, forty-seven minute shredfest, and a plot twist by inviting another randy talent to the party.
The new addition this time is a second electric guitarist, Ava Mendoza, and paired with Barr, her presence tilts the scales firmly toward these loud, amplified instruments.
Barr and Mendoza are not playing guitar with any jazz sensibility, but they are playing exactly to what is sensible for this session. With a guitar in each ear on your headphones, it’s easy to separate them from the babel (thanks to Jamie Saft’s mint mixing) and for a good part of the melee they are playing like mirror images to each other.
Pride is the one seemingly biding his time, pattering on the toms, going along with the general rumble of the guys in front until he nudges things ever so discreetly in another direction where the din is thicker and thicker. Jon Irabagon honks with the urgency of someone staving off the dominance of metal guitars coming from both directions, and a lifting of Pride’s thunder around the twelve minute mark frees up a little room for him to maneuver around. But Pride soon launches another buildup and before long, his drums explode. Irabagon goes for the upper reaches of his sax to be heard over the three.
Somewhere along the way, the guitars disengage from each other, each doing more of their own thing. It’s not like this changes the basic makeup of the song–erm–cacophony. But it’s a little shift that rewards the close listeners. Jon Irabagon bears close listening, too, just because there’s the more variation in his attack (it’s fair to say that no one here merely plays, they attack). But in reality, few are going to listen to this for nuanced chops, it’s all about the three-quarter-of-an-hour-long release, an extended cathartic act.
As the runaway train rounds the bend toward the finale, Mendoza can be heard splitting off and forming melodic ideas. That sets up this incredible tension buildup during which everyone spends every last drop of sweat for this annihilative ending.
The angry, urgent noise on the brutal edge of improvised music gets angrier and more urgent with each forty-seven minute episode. If you’re going to go extreme, do it with conviction. With Ava Mendoza now on board, these guys are committed as ever.
I Don’t Hear Nothin’ But the Blues Volume 3: Anatomical Snuffbox is set for official release on November 10, 2020. Grab a copy from Bandcamp.
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