GIGS: Ian Carey Quintet+1 at SFCMC, February 17

Well: it's been a rough start to the year for pretty much everyone, and I would be lying if I said there weren't times that music seemed like a minor and self-centered pursuit. But that's exactly why it's been a welcome break to let myself get very excited about a show coming up this month.It will be my first gig as a leader working with the great local organization Jazz in the Neighborhood, which was founded by trumpet legend Mario Guarneri and  has been producing a wide variety of shows featuring Bay Area artists for several years (I've been fortunate to be on several as a sideman including with the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra and various guests). JITN's M.O. includes guaranteed wages for the musicians (a lifesaver and unfortunately a rarity these days) and features emerging artists for portions of each performance; they're doing it right and I sincerely hope they will be around to enrich the community of artists and listeners for a long time.This will also be my first performance at Community Music Center, and my first San Francisco show as a solo leader in quite a while (although S.F. is in the Quintet+1's DNA—we got our start at The House of Shields, after all). I'm thrilled to have the band together again, this time with two special guests. First is the amazing Hamir Atwal on drums—I've been lucky to have quite a few opportunities to play with Hamir over the past year or so, and every one of them has been an adventure. We'll also be joined for the first time by amazing multi-reedist and recent local repatriate Steven Lugerner, who will be filling in the Sheldon Brown chair on bass clarinet and baritone sax (!). The group will be rounded out by the outstanding usual suspects Kasey Knudsen on alto saxophone, Adam Shulman on piano, Fred Randolph on bass and me on trumpet.The show will begin with an opening set featuring two excellent local student players (backed by Fred, Adam, and Hamir), and then we'll be performing selections from our past three albums, including works from Interview Music (2016), Roads & Codes (2013), and Contextualizin' (2010), some of which have never been performed in Quintet+1 format before! Here are the details:WHAT: The Ian Carey Quintet+1WHEN: Friday, February 17, 8pmWHERE: Community Music Center, 544 Capp Street, San FranciscoTICKETS: Available hereFinally, for no reason at all, here's a video of me playing Coltrane's "Giant Steps"—I recorded this to help demonstrate my qualifications for teaching a class about that gnarly tune last month. I'm also offering a workshop on improvising with triad pairs (a very fun and interesting way of dealing with a variety of chord changes) on  February 18, check it out![embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm17BUAZJB0&feature=youtu.be[/embed]