New Reviews for 'Roads & Codes' + Bonus Audio
Hello folks, thanks to everyone who made it out to our Takoyaki 3 show last week--if you missed it, we've got two more later this month, at Rose Pistola (3/24) and Yoshi's Lounge (3/27). See the end of this post for a free track from the show!It's been really gratifying to see more positive press for Roads & Codes coming in--the most exciting being my first appearance in Downbeat Magazine, where James Hale featured the album in a set of reviews of trumpeters from around the world, and gave it 4 and 1/2 stars:
Bay Area veteran Ian Carey knows it can take creative packaging to get great music noticed these days. Roads & Codes showcases both the trumpeter's sideline as an illustrator and his primary gig as the leader of a highly skilled band of improvisers. Carey takes advantage of their chops by writing to their strengths--a lesson gleaned from his mentor Maria Schneider--and mixes his own harmonically pleasing compositions with pieces by Neil Young, Igor Stravinsky and Charles Ives. While the combination of graphic art and arty covers might sound contrived, it all works.
In the San Francisco Chronicle, Andy Gilbert previewed our release show by talking about the album:
Berkeley trumpeter Ian Carey isn't letting the CD slip into obsolescence without a fight. A graphic designer by day, he supplied the slyly self-mocking manga-inspired illustrations that give the package a look as smart and arresting as the music it contains. Exploring an array of evocative material... and Carey's striking originals--the band features saxophonists Kasey Knudsen and Evan Francis (a former Bay Area standout back briefly from New York).
The great blogger Marc "Jazzwax" Myers featured the album as one of his "CD Discoveries of the Week," saying
Carey plays a seductive trumpet and flugelhorn. On Roads & Codes, the sextet records mostly Carey originals, which are solid, artful and always smartly paced, enabling you to hear and feel their lyricism. Dig "6th Ave. Local," "Count Up," and "Andante," for example. Neil Young's theme to "Dead Man" is a fabulous wild card, since the film is one of my favorite Westerns. Proof that the trumpet and flugelhorn don't have to be overheated blowtorches to be effective.
At eMusic, Dave Sumner added the album to his weekly jazz picks, calling the band
... a sextet that plays bigger than its head count. Expansive sections buffeted by sweeping melodies that bloom into something more than their origins. Interesting cover of Neil Young’s “Theme from Dead Man,” which I’m noticing several jazz musicians adopting as one of the New Standards. The song “Wheels” might be the strongest album track… a waltz with a light touch and the noble elegance inherent to that song form.
Who else is doing "Dead Man," dammit? Nothing new under the sun, I guess. Meanwhile, on the WYCE Music Journal, Rebecca Ruth reviewed the album:
Trumpeter Ian Carey leads the San Francisco quintet on its third release of mostly original compositions of contemporary instrumental jazz. The choice in covers here is interesting. They include Neil Young's theme from a 1995 Jim Jarmusch film, "Dead Man" and Igor Stravinsky's Suite No.1 for Small Orchestra , re-titled "Andante" for this disc. Two original songs stand out, however. The John Coltrane-inspired "Count Up" is a nice bop piece, as well as "Nemuri Kyoshiro", which was inspired by samurai films. One can't review Roads & Codes, however, without mentioning the cover art. Besides being a trumpeter and composer, Ian Carey is an accomplished graphic artist and designer. Motivated by his love of graphic novels, he has designed the cover... besides telling the story of this record, each musician and song sports its own illustration, upping the cool factor.
The jazz blog marlbank gave the album 3 stars and had this to say:
Heavily influenced by Dave Douglas but with a slightly airier sound, trumpeter Carey did the whole of this album in a day with his band in a San Francisco studio, and it benefits from the real time method at work.... Inspired by Jim Jarmusch, and Charles Ives as well as [Kenny] Wheeler, there’s nothing stuck in the mud about this young player and his band.
Interesting how different people can hear totally different influences in my playing--hadn't thought about the Dave Douglas connection in a while but it's true I listened to him a lot in my 20s (when I used to see him at Connecticut Muffin!).Over at KZSU (Stanford), Forrest Bryant wrote this kind capsule review:
Excellent, very thoughtful set from a Bay Area trumpeter leading a simpatico sextet. The ensemble passages are richly layered, the solos flowing and yearning. There’s an overall feeling of calmness, but spiced with a few vigorous surges and a lot of motion just under the surface. Really fine work from these local musicians.
It isn't really a review, but Memory Select: Avant-Jazz Radio wrote an interesting meditation on the challenges as a programmer of being inundated by so many good new albums, and talks about Roads & Codes' cover art and my attempt to grab peoples' attention visually as well as musically:
Bay Area jazz fans know Carey as a trumpeter and bandleader, assuming they know him at all. But he’s also a graphic designer. So, in toying with drawings to go with Roads and Codes, he developed the idea of making the cover a self-referential story about how to connect good music with an audience. And Carey’s music is good. It’s got a cozy modern-jazz sound with a lot of tricks under the surface; it’s stuff that would get airplay on a station like KCSM. But how does one get the music into their ears?
... that's something I thought of this week as I emailed radio stations to confirm they'd received the album, and got lots of responses along the lines of, "I'll see if I can find it among the hundreds on my desk."Finally, the great Ted Gioia sent the following very kind tweet last week: "Today's listening: Roads & Codes, a new CD from jazz trumpeter Ian Carey. A very underrated player, and a talent to watch."OK, enough reviews! For those of you who stuck around, here's a live version of my tune from the album "Count Up," as performed by Takoyaki 3 (with Adam Shulman on organ, and Jon Arkin on drums) at last week's show:Ian Carey's Takoyaki 3 - Count Up (Live)