Ian Carey & Wood Metal Plastic: Strange Arts
Slow & Steady SS39 • 2024
STRANGE ARTS is the debut album from trumpeter/composer Ian Carey's ensemble WOOD METAL PLASTIC, and his seventh album as a leader. The 7-piece group, which features stellar musicians from across the San Francisco Bay Area's creative music spectrum, tackles a challenging array of Carey's intricate compositions, which bridge the worlds of chamber music, straightahead jazz, and free improvisation, ranging from lush harmonies and counterpoint to spiky modernism. The title refers to Carey's exploration of the aesthetic connections between his music and the eclectic creations of his father, the visual artist Philip Carey, who passed away in 2022, and their shared fascination with density of detail and stylistic contrast. With Ian Carey, trumpet; Kasey Knudsen, alto saxophone; Alisa Rose & Mia Bella d’Augelli, violins; Jessica Ivry, cello; Lisa Mezzacappa, bass; and Jon Arkin, drums.
“Carey highlights his adventurous writing for strings on Strange Arts... Steeped in jazz tradition on the horn (hear his brilliant solo on ’Sink/Swim’), Carey has expansive ears and a beautiful palette to work with, blending composed and improvised episodes with an authoritative hand. There’s no chordal instrument, allowing him to maximize clarity among the string timbres. The five-part ’Set for 7’ covers most of it (including a deep ’Nocturne for Solo Violin’), but three standalone pieces complete the program, including the free and fractious ’I Still Remember Clyfford Still’ (for the late American painter).” —David R. Adler, JazzTimes, “2024 Year in Review: Ensemble Poetics”
“Carey’s writing unfolds in a bright, liminal dominion where post-bop, free improv and chamber music cavort in playful sympathy.” —KQED, “The Best Bay Area Music of 2024”
“The abiding musical personality of Carey’s seven-piece ensemble is that of chamber jazz. The tension that results from guiding it into modern jazz and free improv territory is what makes Strange Arts so engrossing. When the influences of modern jazz hit, they resonate like streaks of sunlight through a cloudy sky. And the free improv influence causes an enticingly slow unraveling of structure, in that way a drop of blood gracefully spreads through a pool of water.” —Dave Sumner, “Best of Jazz on Bandcamp, March 2024”
“[Carey’s] new album is easily his most ambitious and finest… The songs are all originals, and what makes the music interesting is that violinists Mia Bella d'Augelli and Alisa Rose and cellist Jessica Ivry not only provide a silky backdrop but also are cut loose to do their thing. Ian's pieces were influenced by his father's artwork, and five of the seven musicians are women, giving the works a special intensity. Be sure to give this one a listen.” —Marc Myers, Jazzwax
“Ian Carey expands his palette and honors his artist father’s aesthetic… Philip Carey’s artworks often explode with vibrant colors and include fine details that make them compelling from both a telescopic and microscopic perspective. The same can be said about the younger Carey’s penchant for layering compositional elements that stand up to close and casual listening…. At the center of it all is Carey, whose cool lyricism brings clarity even to the thorniest passages.” —John Frederick Moore. Jazziz
“Carey is a heady composer who often writes music reflecting his anxieties and preoccupations, turning angst and obsession into potent creative fuel. His new CD is a chamber jazz project that isn’t afraid to shake up the room. And in exploring the aesthetic confluences between his musical proclivities and the work of his father, the late prolific graphic artist Philip Carey, he’s gotten out of his own head and into a fascinating new space. His seven-piece group melds a jazz quartet with a string trio, and his writing effectively integrates all the elements rather than treating the strings as melodic sweetening. ... Carey’s music is authentically strange, a quality that’s always in short supply.” —Andrew Gilbert, San Francisco Classical Voice
“Rain Tune, the lead cut from Richmond’s own Ian Carey & Wood Metal Plastic outfit, has that culture clash between two styles of jazz that splatter into these mysterious puddles of wonderful colors that Lowe’s could use a hand with. The seven-piece combo crosses modern flights with chamber behaviors that continually bring listeners’ ears to places not considered but always pleasing. ... Strange Arts will have you dipping again and again into its abstract loveliness." –John-Paul Shiver, 48 Hills
“Vibrant… Hints of modern composition sneak in below the jazz, especially on ‘Rain Tune.’” —A Closer Listen
“An exploratory excursion into a mix of chamber music, post-bop, and free improvisation. … If Carey is a new name for you, his cred is considerable… The fruits of expert schooling and versatile experience on the bandstand are on vivid display here, strange indeed but remarkably compelling as well.” —Jim Hynes, Making a Scene
"Aptly peculiar and highly original... ★★★★" —Debra Jan Bibel, Amazon
Read more about Strange Arts here.
The Ian Carey Quintet+1: Fire in My Head (The Anxiety Suite)
Slow & Steady SS12 • 2020
Fire In My Head: The Anxiety Suite is the fifth album from the Ian Carey Quintet+1 and Carey’s first release on Slow & Steady Records. The album features Carey's five-movement portrait of personal and community anxiety, commissioned by Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works program and performed by Carey and his longtime collaborators Kasey Knudsen, alto saxophone; Sheldon Brown, bass clarinet; Adam Shulman, piano; Fred Randolph, bass; and Jon Arkin, drums.
“An ideal soundtrack for these disquieting times. Fire in My Head was composed and recorded long before COVID-19 became a household name, but it’s about as tuned into the zeitgeist as an N95 face mask. Evoking anxiety itself isn’t hard. But Carey does something far more interesting: The five-movement suite unfolds like a stream-of-consciousness interior conversation, with recurring themes, counter themes, digressions and roiling rhythms that mimic a pulse driven by encroaching dread. But his extended forms and through-composed passages leave plenty of space for deep breathing.” —Andrew Gilbert, The East Bay Times
"★★★★ ... Carey crafts a five-part piece mixing chamber jazz and straight ahead bebop with, at times, avant-garde leanings, in an exploration of stressed mental processes via instrumental dialogues inside the compositional foundation." —Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz
“Powerful music made all the more relevant in our current situation. This music will resonate long after the blows from the coronavirus have been absorbed and (hopefully) eliminated. The Ian Carey Quintet+1 has thrown down the gauntlet; listener, start healing yourself through creativity, confrontation, and reflection.” —Richard B. Kamins, Step Tempest
“This whole suite is a tour de force, with great playing by Carey and his band and intricate, moving writing throughout. The subject matter has, sadly, become all the more relevant as we have all plunged into new and stressful realities of existence.” —Noah Baerman, “20 Tracks that Moved Me in 2020”
“A tightly wound concept album, with a mix of through-composed and improvised passages that keep the music's emotional flow focused while giving the players plenty of room to stretch. In addition to Carey's cool, lyrical trumpet, the winds include Sheldon Brown on bass clarinet and Kasey Knudsen on alto saxophone, a timbral combination that often makes the ensemble sound bigger than it is.” —J.D. Considine, DownBeat
“Current global psychological conditions aside, the trumpeter’s ambitious five-part suite is all poignance, high spirits, and creative chaos, not anxiety.” —Philip Booth, Jazz Lands
“The original compositions by Carey are taut and fiery, mirroring the maddening isolation of the virus lockdown and the anxiety of the protest curfew… It's jazz for now.” —Marc Myers, Jazzwax
Read more about Fire in My Head here.
The Ian Carey Quintet+1: Interview Music
KABOCHA B029 • 2016
Interview Music is the the fourth album from the Ian Carey Quintet+1 and the long-awaited follow-up to the acclaimed 2013 album Roads & Codes. Featuring longtime collaborators Adam Shulman on piano, Fred Randolph on bass, Jon Arkin on drums, Kasey Knudsen on alto saxophone and new addition Sheldon Brown on bass clarinet, the album represents Carey's most ambitious compositional work to date in its four part, 55-minute title suite.
Ranging from intricate through-composed sections to raucous group improvisation, the suite offers a commentary on the state of modern jazz composition while providing a showcase for the improvisational chops and cohesion of his group of Bay Area all-stars.
"Carey finds an exquisite balance between his ambitious compositional vision and his design to showcase his superlative cast of improvisers on his five-movement suite... Continuously recasting his buoyant melodic theme in new settings, he builds on the highly interactive rhythm section. But his music feels inspired by the felicitously complimentary sounds of saxophonist Knudsen and supple bass clarinetist Brown, who wend their way around Carey’s sinuously intertwining lines." —Andrew Gilbert, The Mercury News, "Best of 2016"
"Extraordinary writing for three horns―some of the best I've ever heard." —Bill Kirchner, saxophonist/composer, editor, The Oxford Companion to Jazz
"What’s remarkable about Interview Music is how fluid the music remains while navigating a course of dense compositional guideposts. Much of this has to do with the way Carey builds in the improvisational sections in something other than a typical ‘now is the time we take our solos’ construct. It makes it more difficult to tell where and when the improvisational sections start and end, and it’s a big reason why the music has such a spontaneous flow, as if the entire album were performed in a one-take off-the-cuff session. ... Carey’s compositions take his sextet through all kinds of terrain and at all kinds of speeds and in any number of directions. Thankfully, it isn’t weighted down by the changes, but freed, instead, to just sing." —Dave Sumner, Bird is the Word (Best of 2016, #9)
"[The] sextet plays the five-part suite with drive, wit, swing and a palpable unity of purpose. It is complex chamber music with solo space for Carey, long an impressive trumpeter..." —Doug Ramsey, Rifftides
"A fantastic suite that sees some of Carey’s most adventurous writing matched with truly outstanding performances." —The Jazz Page
“Really an incredible piece of music… a superlative work.” —Brad Stone, The Creative Source, Soul and Jazz Radio
"Incredibly rich and complex pieces that breathe life into challenging harmony and creative forms." —Patrick Wolff, Have You Heard (KCSM-FM)
The Ian Carey Quintet+1: Roads & Codes
KABOCHA B025 • 2013
The acclaimed third album from the Ian Carey Quintet (this time expanded to six members), Roads & Codes features six intricate compositions by Carey, as well as new arrangements of music from Charles Ives, Igor Stravinsky, and Neil Young, and original comic-book-style cover art by Carey. With Adam Shulman, piano; Jon Arkin, drums; Fred Randolph, bass; Evan Francis, flute and tenor saxophone; and Kasey Knudsen, alto saxophone.
"★★★★½... Carey knows it can get 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..." —DownBeat (Featured in "Best of 2013" issue)
"Ian Carey isn't letting the CD slip into obsolescence without a fight... he supplied the slyly self-mocking illustrations that give the package a look as smart and arresting as the music it contains... an array of evocative material." —The San Francisco Chronicle
"Carey writes lines that flow on astringent harmonies. His trumpet and flugelhorn keep the listener’s attention not through volume, velocity and extended sorties into the stratosphere, but with story telling and a burnished tone." —Doug Ramsey, Rifftides
"A very underrated player, and a talent to watch." —Ted Gioia, author, The Jazz Standards
The Ian Carey Quintet: Contextualizin’
KABOCHA B021 • 2010
The second album from the Ian Carey Quintet, featuring eight original compositions by Carey, including the straightahead burner "Tom/Tom" (dedicated to trumpeters Tom Harrell and Tom Peron), the mysterious and moody "Questions," the lush ballad "No You," plus a surprisingly original treatment of the standard "Just Friends." With Adam Shulman, piano and Fender Rhodes; Jon Arkin, drums; Fred Randolph, bass; and Evan Francis, flute and alto saxophone.
"I dig Ian Carey. He’s a trumpeter with a clean, clear sound who understands that there are listeners at the other end of recordings. ... his reverence for velvet simplicity and heart-touching tones is evident. When the music on this album hits your ear, you want to hear more... I can’t stop playing this CD.” —Marc Myers, Jazzwax.com
"... Good tone, lyricism and contiguous ideas that lead somewhere. Carey and his young sidemen are in tune with one another, in every sense.” —Doug Ramsey, Rifftides
"Carey interprets his own compositions with straightforward melodic lyricism—deceptively straightforward, in fact... an opportunity to showcase 'discursively' not only Carey’s distinctive style, but also his varied compositional talent.” —Bill Donaldson, Cadence Magazine
The Ian Carey Quintet: SINK/SWIM
KABOCHA B013 • 2006
The debut album from the Ian Carey Quintet, which has been active in the Bay Area since 2002, Sink/Swim features the talents of trumpeter and composer Ian Carey, pianist Adam Shulman, saxophonist Evan Francis, bassist Fred Randolph, and drummer Jon Arkin.
For this session, the quintet explores originals by Carey, including "Thirteen" (a swinging, rhythmically surprising minor blues), "No Comment" (a dark mood piece in a latin groove) and "The Last Cigarette" (a study in counterpoint and group interplay). The group also takes original stabs at compositions both familiar (Wayne Shorter's "ESP"), and less well known (such as Joe Gilman's burner "Treasure Chest," and "The Spinning Song," written by under-appreciated genius Herbie Nichols). KABOCHA B013
"Carey's themes are catchy and original, and all the improvisations are fresh and inventive, highlighted by Francis's sparkling saxophone and Carey's own warm, flowing trumpet work." —Lewis Porter, author of Jazz: From Its Origins to the Present and John Coltrane: His Life and Music
"Interesting and original tunes from this inventive and sensitive jazz artist. Carey weaves his way through the changes with a velvety sound while his arrangements hold your attention." — Trumpetmusic.com
Ben Stolorow & Ian Carey: Duocracy
KABOCHA B027 • 2014
From longtime collaborators pianist Ben Stolorow and trumpeter Ian Carey comes this intimate collection of classics from the beloved ("All the Things You Are," "Cherokee") to the rarely heard ("Little White Lies," "Two for the Road"), delivered with interplay and unpredictability.
“With their fine and refined album Duocracy, trumpeter Ian Carey and pianist Ben Stolorow have a fresh and rewarding musical partnership. … Their disc reveres jazz tradition but feels unbounded too, blessed with spontaneity, poise and personality.” — Peter Hum, Ottawa Citizen
"The most adventurous and exciting trumpet-pianist pairing since cornetist Ruby Braff and pianist-organist Dick Hyman played together a quarter century ago." — East Bay Express
"★★★... The tone is set by the warmth of opener “Little White Lies,” accelerated as “Cherokee” finds rapid-fire lines erupting from Carey’s trumpet, and settles back as Stolorow takes a stride-inflected spin on Monk’s “Four In One.” It’s a lively trip down a straightahead path, never veering far from the expected route but obviously deriving a refreshing joy from the familiar sights." — DownBeat
"Carey’s melodious trumpet and Stolorow’s sparkling piano combine to present a very musical set of standards and jazz favorites." — George Fendel, Jazz Society of Oregon
"Carey and Stolorow created a marvelous album here of effortless swing, deciding to keep the duo loose and limber, unencumbered by involved arrangements... they take great music one step further... the music comes out gentle, almost like lullabies." —John Shelton Ivany, JSI Top 21
"Carey has a wonderful sound, strong and rich. Stolorow is a thoughtful accompanist, and full of ideas. These chaps have found a nice musical place with this duo effort, and the results are thoroughly enjoyable." — Joe Lang, Jersey Jazz
As a Sideman
SAM BEVAN: Emergence (2018)
Emergence is a very personal album that capitulates bassist and composer Sam Bevan's sixteen year residency in the San Francisco Bay Area. Drawing from jazz, gospel, Afro-Cuban and West African traditions, the songs are presented in a chord-less mini-big band format (in the style Gerry Mulligan's and Jaco Pastorius' big bands). There are elements of short melodic structures and free playing in the vein of Ornette Coleman, as well as repetitive melodic hooks that develop and evolve through the pieces.
CIRCUS BELLA ALL-STAR BAND: MIGHTY! (2019)
The second album from accordionist and composer Rob Reich’s supersized version of the Circus Bella All-Star Band. With Michael Pinkham, Alisa Rose, Ian Carey, Andrew Stephens, Greg Stephens, Jonathan Seiberlich, Matthew Charles Heulitt, Kasey Knudsen, Sheldon Brown, Sara Moore, Natasha Kaluza, Jamie Coventry, and Madeline Tasquin.
BRYAN BOWMAN: Like Minds (2015)
Like Minds is the debut recording by jazz drummer and composer Bryan Bowman. The set is comprised of unique and modern original music that is at once a logical extension of jazz’s tradition and a look into its future. Bryan Bowman is joined on this date by Ian Carey on trumpet, Bob Kenmotsu on saxophone, Matt Clark on piano and Doug Miller on bass.
LEWIS JORDAN & MUSIC AT LARGE: this is where i came in ... (2017)
Improvisation and poetry, "from the triad to infinity," following in the footsteps of those who have spoken and played like their hearts depended on it. In this recording, saxophonist and poet Lewis Jordan brings together all the elements that have nurtured him from the beginning: a love of free improvisation, a love of structure, a love of words, and always an eye/ear to how our art shapes our world. With Jordan, saxophone and poetry; Karl Evangelista, guitar; Ollen Erich Hunt, bass; David Boyce, saxophone; Ian Carey, trumpet; and Jimmy Biala, drums.
ELECTRIC SQUEEZEBOX ORCHESTRA: Cheap Rent (2014)
San Francisco-based trumpeter Erik Jekabson has led an all-star cast of Bay Area musicians every Sunday over the last year at Doc's Lab in SF's vibrant North Beach neighborhood. Building a formidible book of creative arrangements and originals, a dynamic group aesthetic, and a loyal fan-base ready for anything, the ESO takes chances and explores options while never veering from their pursuit of groove, beauty and subtlety.
THE CIRCUS BELLA ALL-STAR BAND (2011)
Accordionist Rob Reich (Tin Hat, Gaucho, Nice Guy Trio) leads a top notch 11-piece band through his bold original music for Circus Bella. The music captures the danger, bravado, wit, and virtuosity of a traveling circus show. It sweeps the listener through a dazzling array of styles, and explores the line between deadly serious and hilarious. With Reich, Ralph Carney, Sylvain Carton, Tom Griesser, Dina Maccabee, Henry Hung, Ian Carey, Greg Stephens, Zachariah Spellman, Michael Pinkham, Beth Goodfellow, Tristan Cunningham, and Ken Prokuski.