Our friend the great drummer Bryan Bowman will be doing his part to fight back against the evils of the live music business by hosting at his Emeryville loft (and allowing us use of his beautiful grand piano) for this special event. Plus, Trader Joe’s-caliber refreshments will be served, so that plus six musicians and two hours of brand-new music is a lot of bang for your ten bucks (and all proceeds go directly to the band’s rent, cellphone bills and/or Hulu subscriptions).

So please get this on your calendars and come on out to support homegrown musical mayhem!

WHAT: The Ian Carey Quintet+1
WHO: Ian Carey, trumpet & flugelhorn; Evan Francis, flute & tenor saxophone; Adam Shulman, piano; Fred Randolph, bass; Jon Arkin, drums; and special guest Kasey Knudsen, alto saxophone.
WHERE: 1430 62nd Street, Emeryville, CA (Enter the building through the glass door up the ramp located nearest Hollis St. on 62nd., go upstairs to the second floor, walk to the third door on the right and enter 1430.)
WHEN: Saturday, April 14, 2:30-4:30pm
HOW MUCH: $10-25 donation requested; but no one turned away for lack of funds. (No really–I know it’s tax time, so don’t let the donation be a deterrent!)

Hi folks, I’m happy to announce an upcoming show for my new-ish trio Takoyaki 3, which I like to think of as the streamlined, street-food-style version of my quintet. It features the talents of my friends Adam Shulman on organ and Bryan Bowman on drums. The book consists of a sizable chunk of original tunes by the three of us, plus select chestnuts from the jazz (BAM!) tradition and even some American Popular What-Have-Yous.

We’ll be playing at the beautiful Yoshi’s Lounge in San Francisco as part of their local talent series. So come on down for some delicious sushi & sake and support live music (by which I mean me)!

What: Ian Carey’s Takoyaki 3
Who: Adam Shulman, organ; Ian Carey, trumpet & flugelhorn; Bryan Bowman, drums
Where: Yoshi’s Lounge, 1330 Fillmore St., San Francisco
When: Sunday, March 4, 6:30-11pm
How Much: Free!

Geri Allen — The Nurturer (1990) & Maroons (1992): I once got to go hear Geri Allen at the Village Vanguard after a friend who worked at an artist’s credit union discovered money for her which she’d forgotten about, and going to her show seemed like the best way to get in touch. She was off my radar for a while before a friend loaned me an album last year, which led to me digging up more. These two are  both fine early 90s efforts, with really interesting tunes and her own deeply personal blowing–and of special interest to trumpeters, great contributions from sidefolks like Wallace Roney and underappreciated legend Marcus Belgrave. (“Number Four,” an Allen/Belgrave duet on Maroons, is worth the price of admission itself.)

Derek Adlam — Masterpieces for Clavichord by Bach (2005); Christophe Rousset — Bach: Italian Concerto; Partita in B minor etc. (1992): Since stumbling on to Johnny Reinhard’s “Microtonal Bach” show during WKCR’s annual Bach Festival while I was in college, I’ve been hooked on recordings of my favorite composer made on instruments in historical, non-equal-tempered tunings–even though I love Bach on piano, once you’ve heard how colorful and interesting baroque modulations can be in nonequal tuning, hearing the same pieces on an equal-tempered instrument can be like going from technicolor to black & white. Rousset’s rousing album features a strident harpsichord in the Werckmeister III tuning, and outstanding versions of several Bach staples, including one of my all-time favorites, the Chromatic Fantasia & Fugue in D minor (check it out here). Adlam’s disc features the much more subtle clavichord (made for quiet performances in small rooms) in a tuning called “Young 2,” and a program of lesser-known (to me) pieces. (Couldn’t find a video but here’s Adlam playing some William Byrd in nonequal tuning.) If you want to get a great intro to historical tuning and the kind of color effects I’m talking about, check out this page featuring the same baroque piece played in Meantone, Werckmeister and equal (modern) tunings.

Herbie Hancock/Wayne Shorter — 1+1 (1997): It’s embarrassing, but I never got around to checking out this album until recently, when a friend put on the sublime “Meridianne/A Wood Sylph” at a listening party. (We had a great time imagining the Verve execs’ reaction in the studio–”Uh, are you sure you guys don’t feel like throwing in a version of ‘All Blues’ or something?”) With these giants, you know it would’ve been incredible even if they’d phoned it in, which they unquestionably did not. An outstanding reminder of the towering peaks still remaining to be ascended in this music. On the off chance that I’m not the last person in the world to recommend this record, I strongly suggest you pick it up.

On the list of topics most white jazz musicians would rather not be talking about, I think issues of race in jazz fall right behind their parents’ sex lives or when the biopsy results are due back. It’s uncomfortable for all sorts of reasons, which is why most of us choose to avoid getting into it if at all possible. It tends to explode the happy illusion that the jazz scene is a harmonious colorblind family where musical achievement is the only metric that matters. If it is discussed, it’s usually among friends in a non-public setting where good faith can be assumed and people can accept some basic facts as givens:

• that jazz is a music that came out of the African-American community and is a deep part of that culture’s historical identity;
• that great respect is due to the Black masters who shaped it;
• that those masters were on the receiving end of vicious racial animosity for much of the music’s history;
• that white musicians unfairly profited from discrimination against black musicians by audiences and the music industry;* but
• that white musicians also played a role in the development of the music; and
• that America isn’t yet over these wounds, and people, especially musicians, ignore this to their own detriment.

But on the internet, in public, things are very different. Anybody with a Twitter or Facebook account can instantly jump into the fray with thoughts ranging from well-thought-out arguments to idiotic name-calling–so after a brief honeymoon (ten minutes? 15?) of respectful disagreement with Payton, sure enough, out of the woodwork came (mostly white) people calling him a racist, accusing him of calling them thieves, etc. This is par for the course in American discourse (see here) but disappointing, since I like to think jazz musicians are a little more attuned to how loaded these issues can be.

But as I said in one Facebook thread which I couldn’t stop myself from getting sucked into (after it followed the standard devolution from reasoned debate to incoherent jazz Fight Club), it’s unfortunately easy for white jazz players to fall into the trap of walking around in a haze of proactive defensiveness, ready to drop Bill Evans on anyone who brings up racism in the music’s past or present.

But to those white players who feel themselves veering toward that defensiveness, I would say the following:

• The fact is, you are occasionally going to run into people who think you probably shouldn’t be playing this music, or think white people are generally bad for jazz. Some of them may be your friends. Some of them may be your heroes. Some of them may be German tourists who think jazz can only be played in sunglasses. Some of them may know much less about the music than you do. This is just a fact of life and a natural result of the history covered above.
• This is indeed a drag. Trust me, I get it. It’s a drag to spend your life learning to play a music, only to know there are people who think you’ll never be authentic because of who your parents are. But:
• Compared to what the Black architects of this music went through over the first century of its existence, this is a pretty minor price to pay. No one is throwing you in jail. No one is making you walk in the back door or use a separate water fountain. There is no vast population of white jazz musicians being deprived of work by inferior Black jazz musicians. Being called a thief is a hell of a lot nicer than some of the names I’m sure those pioneers heard on a regular basis.
• In case you’ve forgotten, being white is an advantage in just about every other area of your life, short of the cost of sunscreen. (In case you need a refresher: see here.)
• This doesn’t mean you should never respond to a dumb argument or defend yourself, just try to have some perspective and be grateful that you live in a relatively peaceful country and can study music and (God forbid) occasionally get paid to play it.
• But if it still bothers you and you really want to change peoples’ minds, take a cue from that Bill Evans guy you’re always mentioning and win them over by being a nice and respectful person and playing your ass off.

—

*To be clear, this usually wasn’t the musician’s fault! By all accounts Paul Whiteman was actually a pretty decent guy who cared about his musicians, and Chet Baker openly acknowledged that winning a trumpet poll while Clifford Brown was still alive was ridiculous (and I love Chet, but c’mon). But the fact that nobody calls Paul Whiteman the King of Jazz anymore, or thinks the ODJB was acutally “original” is a good sign that history is a better judge than short-term marketing hype.

—

… WHILE YOU’RE HERE, some other posts to check out:

• Jazz Philanthropy & The Gig: A Thought Experiment
• New York: Jazz Mecca, Economic Hell, Talent Sap?
• Technique in Jazz: One Guy’s Take
• Jazz According to G
• Or you can check out my latest album here.

This music… this sticky treacly manufactured international pop goo, whose sticky effusions have polluted the entire planet, springs from no culture other than money. It represents only the international corporate business behemoth that has taken the name ‘music’ into its title, despite having no interest in the concept of what music really is. It is unprecedented in human musical history – a music without any culture. A music without any message. And ultimately a music without any true humanity.

Tell us what you really think, Ronan!

Seriously, though–although I have a great fondness for this kind of crotchetiness, and I don’t like most of the music he’s talking about either, I have three objections to this critique:

• This stuff is immensely popular and important to millions of (mostly) young people and serves as the anthems of their generation the same way that the popular music of your generation or mine did for us. YES, it’s shoved down their throats by multimedia conglomerates, but the fact is that people have access to a whole world of music, and a great plurality if not majority of them are choosing to listen to this, because it resonates with them. To deny the music’s humanity is to deny theirs, I think. And I would say there are millions of fully human, vibrant, intelligent young people in the world who nonetheless have crappy taste in music. (If you disagree, read this guy’s blog for a while. He writes incredibly intelligently about what does not, to my untrained ears, seem to be especially intelligent music. But that makes me think twice about writing it off!)
• I’m pretty sure the major purveyors of music, art, and literature throughout history have pretty much never cared about quality as much as they have about capital (at least since the end of the patronage system). Singling out today’s pablum for special condemnation smacks of end-times-ism.
• In spite of the incredibly annoying production values of most of today’s top 40, there are still plenty of catchy tunes out there being written by actual human beings. It makes me angry sometimes, since they’re so annoying, but I defy you to not get something like this stuck in your head. (And it even has a repeating modulation! Suck it, Jerome Kern!)

All that said, I really do think Auto-tune is going to ruin peoples’ ears for real singing, and I do think the globalization of pop is going to continue to weaken a lot of regional music (as globalization has in every other aspect of culture, as inexorable as that is).

Thinking about all this did make me think of my dad, however, who likes to respond to any overheard pop, hiphop, etc. by saying, “they’ve finally come up with music for people who don’t like music.” This from a guy who listens to Schoenberg!

Ah, summertime by the Bay–the cold, the rain, the rock-hard peaches. Hope you’re all making the most of it. I wanted to drop a line to let you know about some exciting shows coming up in the next month–many of them free!

As you may know, and as my wife likes to say, “Ian ran off and joined the circus!” Specifically, I’m playing with the Circus Bella All-Star Band, which accompanies the local independent circus of the same name as they go about their Death-Defying feats of Derring-Do. The band is led by composer/accordionist extraordinaire Rob Reich, and features a fine cast of Bay Area perennials (including the amazing multi-instrumentalist wizard Ralph Carney). The music is an eclectic (I know, but in this case it’s true) mix of early jazz, brass band, Balkan, Gypsy, and indie rock influences, chock full of improvisation and surprises.

You can catch Circus Bella (& yours truly) at the following dates & places during their 2011 Circus in the Parks series, beginning THIS WEEK! (All free, unless otherwise noted.)

• Thurs 6/30, 5:30pm: Outside Revolution Cafe, West Oakland (preview show)
• Fri 7/1, 12pm: Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco
• Sat 7/2, 12pm & 2pm: Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco
• Sat 7/9, 2pm: Pickleweed Park & Community Center, San Rafael
• Sun 7/10, 12:30pm: SF Sunday Streets, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
• Fri, 7/15, 6pm: Studio One Art Center, Oakland
• Sun 7/24, 12pm: Dimond Park, Oakland
• Sun 7/24, 8pm: CD RELEASE SHOW–SEE BELOW
• Sun 7/31, 2pm: Napa Valley Opera House, Napa ($15)

The band has also recorded a fine new album (click here to sample or purchase) featuring an expanded version of the group, and will be having a CD release show on July 24th (Happy Birthday to me!) at Berkeley’s Freight & Salvage at 8pm. There may even be assorted juggling and other unexpected circusness!

Finally, with the assistance of my lawyers, I will close by saying, Come one, Come all, one of you should come, all of you should come, to the Greatest Show on Earth! to a very good show on this planet!

My contributions (so far) to the fact-fiesta:

• They called Louis Armstrong “Pops” because he founded the Boston Pops, and ate Corn Pops, and had so many children.
• They called the album “Kind of Blue” because Miles was suffering from hypothermia.
• “Birdland” was actually named after the movie “The Birds” and Harold Land.
• They call it the saxophone because the first one was actually made out of a phone.
• “Take The A Train” was supposed to be either “Take The Train” or “Take A Train,” not both!
• Few people know that “Songbird” was actually a reharmonization of “Ascension.”
• Who knew that jazz would grow from its beginnings in David Lee Roth’s “Just a Gigolo” to become a worldwide phenomenon?
• No family has done more for jazz than the Jones brothers–Elvin, Thad, Hank, Tom, James Earl, and Barnaby.
• Coltrane called his tune “Giant Steps” in honor of Wilt Chamberlain’s feet.
• Chick Webb was an inspiration to every chick with with webbed feet who dreamed of playing jazz.
• Few people know that Herbie Hancock got his nickname because he Goes Bananas.
• Jazz evolved in the late 1800s when rustic field hollers began to incorporate synth bass, DX-7s, and QuadraVerb.
• WC Handy was such a big sports fan that he named his most famous composition after his favorite hockey team.
• The word “jazz” was a common American slang term meaning “as exciting as basketball in Utah.
• I used to think Charlie Parker was great, until I found out he was just reading all those solos out of the Omnibook.
• Jelly Roll Morton changed his name because “Croissant Morton” sounded too fancy.
• Coltrane took such long solos because he had lockjaw, which is how he got the nickname Eddie “Lockjaw” Coltrane.
• King Oliver’s nickname came from his favorite movie, “Oliver!”
• Joe Henderson wrote “Inner Urge” after waiting in an especially long line for the mens’ room.
• Everyone knows Kenny G invented jazz, but few remember Wynton Marsalis invented classical music.

More of my questionable attempts at internet humor can be found here.

UPDATE: Some of my favorites from other folks:

• Is that the “Jazz Masters Cemetery” up ahead? Good–pull-over. I gotta pee. (@AtmosTrio)
• Tina Brooks is a huge influence on me, both as a saxophone player and as someone who constantly gets mistaken for a woman. (@keithflentge)
• Trumpeter Booker Little was not only a librarian but a dwarf as well. His real name remains a mystery. (@peterhum)

And I’m grateful to WBGO for giving a shout out to this list! (I’d be even more grateful if they’d give my CD a spin.)*

*No really, why have I had more luck getting attention on the web by being funny than by playing jazz? Is the universe trying to tell me something?

Here are a few artists and albums which have lately been getting a lot of play around my house, car, ears, subconscious. (Two of them are even literally new!)

Ambrose Akinmusire – “When the Heart Emerges Glistening” (2011), “Prelude (to Cora)” (2008): Ambrose grew up around here and has been known to frequent the same jam sessions I go to when he’s in town, so it’s just bad luck I haven’t heard him live yet–but his recent media firestorm is well-deserved. I’d been looking forward to checking out “When the Heart” since his Blue Note deal was announced, and was even more interested after reading some interviews. A few things he said actually blew my mind a little–for example: “I can sound like the most articulate trumpet player… But at the other side, I want to be able to sound like a beginning trumpet player. I want to be able to sound like I can’t play. I’m thinking of that spectrum.” For a jazz musician, this is kind of a shocking statement–it shouldn’t be, since that whole unpolished, raw quality has been part of the music since its earliest days–but I think players devote so much (necessary) time and energy to becoming masters of technique (playing the “right notes,” having a clean sound and execution, etc.) that they don’t often give themselves permission to be messy and raw (and play some clams if necessary). I recently wrote that I really enjoyed David Smith’s playing due to the unapologetic “trumpety-ness” of it, and Ambrose really takes this ball and runs with it. Obviously he’s not the first player to combine that fondness for the messier side of the horn with solid chops (I think Dizzy, Don Cherry, Lester Bowie, Dave Douglas, and early Wynton are probably all in his artistic genealogy somewhere–he might like my hero Shake Keane too), but the adventurous unpredictability of his ideas is what really makes it stand out for me. I really enjoyed “Heart,” which is pretty evenly happening (although the production sometimes gets a little weird, like when overenthusiastic use of panning gives the impression Ambrose is flying around the studio on a wire)–so I also checked out “Cora,” which I think I might like even better, since it comes across as having even less studio-polish (despite a fair amount of synths) and the fearless blowing comes to the fore.

Clare Fischer – “First Time Out” (1962), “Surging Ahead” (1963): Fischer first cropped up on my radar in college, when my arranging teacher Mike Mossman touted his big band charts. But I never really checked out his piano playing until recently, when I found a $5 LP of “First Time Out” after doing a gig at Bird & Beckett’s and was inspired to dig deeper. So I managed to track down a used copy of “Mosaic Select: The Pacific Jazz Trios,” which includes the complete tracks from “First Time,” “Surging,” and some unreleased odds and ends from Fischer’s early 60s trio featuring the young Gary Peacock, plus other great material from West Coast pianists Russ Freeman, Richard Twardzick, and Jimmy Rowles. Fischer comes across on these albums as a really interesting improviser, tons of chops (his octave lines alone should win over the bopheads), melodicism, with an arranger’s ear for harmony and plenty of daring. Highlights include “Free Too Long,” a brisk free-blowing tune (over steady time) which is an interesting comparison to Peacock’s (slightly) later work with Paul Bley, or Keith Jarrett’s early trio albums; a burning version of “Lennie’s Pennies” (Fischer was obviously working his way through Tristano’s language and finds interesting, personal things to extrapolate from it); plus straightahead smokers like “Without a Song” and intricate originals like “Strayhorn,” heard below:

Fischer is still very active and I look forward to checking out more of his work from the past 40 years; I also came across a great podcast which includes plenty of his early playing and arranging work–check it out here: Extension: Clare Fischer in the 1960s.

Avishai Cohen – “Introducing Triveni” (2010): Another strong record from a young(ish) trumpeter. Cohen has lately been playing with the SFJAZZ Collective–don’t be confused by the name, the group’s only connection to San Francisco is the address on their W-2s–but I hadn’t really checked him out before I picked up this disc in Vancouver. (Canadian CD stores are a lot better for jazz than American stores.) (But not even close to Japanese stores.) My first band out of college was a trumpet/bass/drums trio, so I can appreciate how challenging it can be for the chops, but I remember it also encouraged interesting, less chord-dependent writing, and that’s certainly the case here. The band is swinging, loose, and sound like they’re really enjoying themselves. Cohen’s playing is impressive and imaginative throughout (and like Akinmusire, full of raspiness, vocalizations and other effects). Highlights for me were a great version of Don Cherry’s “Art Deco” and an absolutely killing live track called “October 25th.” With Cohen and Akinmusire, plus other folks like Kirk Knuffke, Jason Palmer and David Smith (not to mention the badasses here in the Bay Area!), it’s become clear to me that there are entirely too many happening young trumpeters out there. May be time to switch to the mellophone or something. (Nope, too late.)

Well that does it for this installment of “New to Me”–those are three artists which have been floating my boat lately, and maybe they’ll float yours, too. On a final cheesy note, why not take a second and Like my Facebook page? It’s quick, painless, and I swear I will never fall for any of those click-through viruses which flood your wall with posts about working from home. (I mean never fall for any of them AGAIN.)

What: The Noah Schenker Quartet
Who: Noah Schenker, bass; Ian Carey, trumpet; Adam Shulman, piano; TBA, drums (but you know it’ll be somebody good).
When: Tuesday, May 10, 7-10pm
Where: Caffe Trieste,  2500 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley
How Much: Free!

Also, for those of you who weren’t able to make it to Takoyaki 3’s inaugural show at the Actual Jazz Series last month, series founder Jacob Zimmerman and Theo Padouvas were kind enough to video the entire show, so I thought I’d share two tunes. The first is our take on “How Deep is the Ocean”:

Next up is our impromptu closer (when we realized our set was running short)–”All Seven Things” (apologies to Jerome Kern):

First up is a show Tuesday in Berkeley with some longtime musical pals–we’ll be playing a variety of tunes old & new to a steady accompaniment of espresso grinding and milk frothing:

What: Noah Schenker Quartet
Who: Noah Schenker, Adam Shulman, Jon Arkin, Ian Carey
Where: Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley
When: Tuesday, April 12, 7-10pm

Next up, this Sunday will be the premiere of my new group, Takoyaki 3, as part of Jacob Zimmerman’s Actual Jazz Series right here in Oakland. For some reason, I described the group this way:

Takoyaki 3 is a streamlined, street-food-style version of Ian Carey’s successful quintet, featuring longtime collaborators Adam Shulman on Hammond B3 organ and Bryan Bowman on drums. The recipe begins with a delicious batter of original composition and improvisation, adds meaty chunks of the jazz tradition, cooks til golden brown, then tops with a generous handful of experimentation and plenty of mayonnaise.

We’ll be sharing the bill with the amazing vocaphonist Lorin Benedict who is the curator for the evening and was kind enough to invite us along:

What: Actual Jazz Series featuring Lorin Benedict/Sam Ospovat Duo and Ian Carey’s Takoyaki 3
Where: Actual Cafe, Oakland
When: Sunday, April 17, 5-7pm (My group’s going on first.)

Believe it or not, both shows have NO COVER! So please come out to either or both of them and support live music. It’s what our founding fathers would have wanted!

Now as promised, here are a couple of little audio tidbits for your perusal–first, a tune of mine from Takoyaki 3’s rehearsal today. In the spirit of adventure, it’s not a complete take but gives you a taste of what the group is sounding like:

• “Nemuri Kyoshiro” (Rehearsal take)

And for the real die-hards, here’s an interesting Tristano-esque experiment I did recently–I took a playalong of “Cherokee” in a weird key, slowed it to half-time, recorded myself playing over it, then sped the recording back up to normal tempo. The result is strange and kind of interesting and might be a glance at what I could be sounding like some time in the future. Here you go:

• “Cherokee in E” (slow/fast version)