(after), Aaron Irwin's ninth album, is a collection of works inspired by poetry as interactions between sound and verse weave together melancholy, effervescence, and at times, anxiety sparked by chaos. Creating a collective musical voice that is direct, honest, and unique, composer, saxophonist, and clarinetist Aaron Irwin is joined by Mike Baggetta (guitar), and Jeff Hirshfield (drums).

Irwin’s longstanding interest in reading and understanding poetry was given room to breathe during the pandemic. He credits his teachers and classmates (Brooklyn Poets, Gotham Writers) with providing a much-needed outlet.

“During the suddenly virtual world we all lived in during COVID, I realized the similarities between music and poetry. Beyond the cliché, it is another layered world of expression and allows for an entirely different interpretation of emotional range in the attempt to give form to the intangible.”

The album is titled ‘(after),’ in reference to the practice in poetry of writing new works inspired by, or in conversation with, an existing work. The opening track, Recuerdo (after Edna St. Vincent Millay), brings to life the joy and whimsy of each instrument’s voice in the beauty of the quotidian. Baggetta’s guitar shines here, providing steadiness, twists, and verve.

Three pieces on the album include the inspiration poem itself spoken as part of the presentation: Frederick Douglass (after Robert Hayden) read by Bonita Oliver, The Hill (after Joshua Mehigan) by Joshua Mehigan, and Daniel Boone (after Stephen Vincent Benét) by Emily Wong.

Frederick Douglass (after Robert Hayden) opens with the poem orated by Oliver - not long in duration, but captures in its sparse lines the life’s work of the great abolitionist, “...this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful and terrible thing...”

The music that follows brings Irwin into the forefront of the avant-folk jazz genre. The Hill (after Joshua Mehigan) includes the poem as well, read by its Brooklyn-based award-winning author. The comfort of the poem’s spoken rhythms is separated by musical passages featuring Irwin on bass clarinet alongside his bandmates, one of the four pieces on the album with this instrumentation. The aural landscape reflects its inspirational verse formally in its structure as well as the interpretation of its meaning for the composer. The closing piece on the album, The President Visits the Storm (after Shane McCrae), joins the conversation the poem is itself already in to call out the absurd and seek to make sense where sense seems to have abandoned us.