Hello Folks! I wanted to let you know about some exciting musical stuff coming up that I'm glad to be a part of.Firstly, the Ian Carey Quintet+1's next album, Interview Music, was recorded this past weekend at the legendary Fantasy Studios in Berkeley (in the same room as "Don't Stop Believin'", if you can believe that). The band put a herculean effort into a very long day (and my pain in the @#$ compositions) and I couldn't be happier with the result. The album is on track for a fall release.Speaking of which: the Quintet+1 (Kasey Knudsen, alto sax; Sheldon Brown, bass clarinet; Adam Shulman, piano; Fred Randolph, bass; Jon Arkin, drums; and me) will be returning next month to the great downtown Oakland venue The Sound Room. The show is on Saturday, May 16th, so please save the date for what should be a very exciting show.I'm also excited about a new album I was fortunate to record with the great local drummer and composer Bryan Bowman and his quintet (with saxophonist Bob Kenmotsu, pianist Matt Clark and bassist Doug Miller). The album, titled Like Minds, features many of Bryan's beautiful compositions. The CD release show for the album will be held Thursday, May 7 at 8pm at Bird & Beckett Books in SF.I've also been playing quite a bit with two very interesting big bands, both dedicated to original arrangements--which is especially great since just a couple of years ago the Bay Area seemed to be becoming a big band dead zone.  The first is guitarist/composer Tony Corman's Morchestra, which will be playing this Friday, April 24 at 8pm at the California Jazz Conservatory (aka the Jazzschool) in Berkeley. In addition to Tony's beautiful charts, we'll be joined by a special guest vocalist, the great Ed Reed.The other big band is the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra (led by trumpeter/composer Erik Jekabson), which features a who's who of local heavies and only performs arrangements written by members of the group. I was lucky enough to play on several tunes of their upcoming album Cheap Rent and have been playing fairly often with the group (and they've been gracious enough to play one of my compositions). I'll be joining them at their regular (free!) Sunday night residency at Doc's Lab in SF on the following Sundays: 4/26, 5/3. 5/24, 6/7, 6/21 (all shows from 6:30-9pm).And later on in the summer, I'm excited to be playing for the first time with one of my compositional and bandleading idols, Nathan Clevenger, so stay tuned for details.Finally, I'm planning on expanding both my musical instruction and graphic design business in the next year, so please don't hesitate to reach out if you know someone interested in trumpet, improvisation, or composition lessons, or who is in need of graphic design assistance.Thanks and hope to see you at a show soon!

Hi folks, I wanted to let you know about a show coming up I'm very excited about--my partner in crime Ben Stolorow and I will be returning to the hills of Tiburon for a Sunday afternoon appearance at the historic Old St. Hilary's, a former church-turned-beautiful performance venue.This will be our second appearance at Old St. Hilary's--our show there last spring was one of my favorite Duocracy shows so far. We'll be offering our unique take on favorites and forgotten gems from the American Popular Songbook, along with some jazz rarities and possibly even an original or two.  Hope to see you there, and please pass on the word to any North Bay friends!WHAT: Duocracy (Ben Stolorow, piano; Ian Carey, trumpet)WHEN: Sunday, March 1, 4:00pWHERE: Old St. Hilary's, TiburonTICKETS: $20/$15, available here

Hi folks, I just wanted to say THANK YOU to everyone who came out to our premiere of "Interview Music" last week at California Jazz Conservatory (sponsored by the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music).  And I should clarify--they didn't just come out, they sat still for the 60-minute first set (in which we played "IM" in its entirety with no breaks), and they also stayed for a second helping!  Credit is also due to my incredible band, who worked their butts off and played the hell out of that thing.I also wanted to share some great photos which were taken at the show by Brian Yuen:

I have more exciting shows coming up soon, including my first appearance with the new Bay Area Composers' Big Band this Sunday (9/28) in SF, a  Duocracy reunion (with Ben Stolorow) at Bird & Beckett Oct. 5, and performance #2 of "Interview Music" at the Hillside Club in Berkeley, November 14!

Hello folks, happy summer to you all! I hope you're all OD'ing on corn dogs and peaches and outdoor shows while the gettin' is good. I wanted to give an update on my upcoming, soon-to-be-but-not-yet titled new album.After an outstanding house concert in the spring, we learned the sad but exciting news that the great Evan Francis was heading for New York, and decided it would be a crime to put this new music on disc without him. We were lucky to find a single day prior to Evan's skipping town which worked for all six of us (plus our engineer Dan Feiszli), so we filed into Studio Trilogy in SF for an 11-hour, nine-tune marathon in early June. This challenged chops, fingers, tempers, and attention spans, but at the end of the day (literally), everyone was very happy with the result (or so they said!).Currently Dan and I are knee-deep in the mixing process, and it's looking like the album will be released in January (kind of a long wait but we have to avoid the jazz radio Christmas music crunch for obvious reasons). The disc will feature all new 6-piece compositions and arrangements, including six originals plus reworkings of music by Ives, Stravinsky, and Neil Young.Look for more details soon about the CD release and show dates. (And I'll be back soon with a fresh installment of "New to Me.")

Joe Cohen, Me, and Noel Jewkes with 8LM. Photo from Baytaper.com.

Hello, listeners, and a happy summertime to you all. I wanted to share two things with you: the first is that the great local music website Baytaper.com has posted photos and audio recordings from last months 8 Legged Monster show at Club Deluxe. The band featured local luminaries such as Noel Jewkes, Rob Barics, Vince Lateano, and others, and I really enjoyed playing with them. There's also a guest appearance by local trumpet phenom Mike Olmos, who stopped by and sat in on a tune written especially for him by bandleader Mike Irwin Johnson. So swing by Baytaper and check it out (and be sure to browse their extensive library of recordings of other fine local musicians).

Secondly, I promised to put up some recordings from my April Quintet show at Anna's in Berkeley for those who weren't able to attend. The band was smokin' (if I may say so), and we played some interesting new (or new to us, anyway) material. So here are two tracks for your (absolutely free) enjoyment--if you like what you hear, please consider buying our CD (if you haven't already).

• Sink/Swim (I. Carey): The title track from our CD, in maybe the best live version we've done.
• Sockdolager (I. Carey): A disjointed minor blues in 6/4 time, which I wrote in NYC years ago but updated for this group. Personnel on both tracks: myself on trumpet; Evan Francis, alto saxophone; Matt Clark, piano; Kurt Kotheimer, bass; Tim Bulkley, drums. Recorded live, 4/23/08.

Last week Linda and I decided celebrate the home stretch of my sabbatical and her spring break by taking a short trip up to Portland, Oregon (where she lived for a year or so after college). Although we were really only looking to explore and eat some delicious food, the trip wound up having some real musical highlights for me, as well.

I didn't know any musicians up there beforehand, but since I had heard there were some great players in town, we dug through the newspaper listings and were lucky enough to find a jam session the first night we were there. It was hosted by the great local drummer Ron Steen, and was at a cool little pub called Produce Row. They were nice enough to let me play quite a bit and hear some fine local players like bassists Scott Steed (formerly of the Bay Area) and Lea Ball, among many others.

Kate Davis & I with Ron Steen at Wilf's. More photos here.

Ron also kindly invited me to come by and sit in at his gig two days later at Wilf's, which is in the classic Union Station building downtown (with its flashing "GO BY TRAIN" sign). Also playing were pianist Dan Gaynor, who was a great soloist with a really nice touch, and 17-year-old phenom Kate Davis on bass and vocals, who will definitely be famous before long.

Another definite high point of the trip was my visit to the Monette trumpet and mouthpiece factory, where Dave Monette and his staff have been quietly revolutionizing the brass instrument business for the past few decades. First, Dean Comley treated me to a fascinating tour of the shop, where they make every part of their instruments and mouthpieces, "except for the rubber rings on top of the valve casings." They were just finishing a prototype of a new, hybrid instrument for Ron Miles (it looked a little like a larger, shorter trumpet, and was pitched in G!), which one of the employees demonstrated--it had a great, resonant sound.

Once we finished the tour, Dave Monette himself came in and gave me an impromptu clinic on the concepts behind his mouthpieces--perhaps the most crucial point being that standard trumpet mouthpieces were originally sized for trumpets in the key of A, and are therefore too long to "slot" correctly over the range of the instrument without requiring the player to make body adjustments which introduce unhelpful tension and effort. He asked me to a) play notes over three octaves with my old mouthpiece and posture, then b) had me repeat them with my tuning slide pulled out until my horn was in the key of A, then c) pushed the slide back in, and had me repeat them again with a Monette mouthpiece and the posture and breathing adjustments he suggested. The results won me over immediately.

After that, all that remained was for Dean to very patiently hand me a long succession of mouthpieces while we looked for the right combination of comfort, sound, range, and flexibility--a process which made me pity the captive audience of guys working in the shop, but which finally helped me find "the one," which I fortunately settled on with just enough time left for the short drive to the airport and to make our flight home. (And although I was expecting an "adjustment period," I used the new mouthpiece on Ben Stolorow's CD release party gig, and it felt great.) For any trumpeters visiting the Portland area, I highly recommend a making an appointment to visit to the shop, even if you're not a current customer of theirs. But I warn you, you may walk out a believer.

Finally, I should mention another great thing for musicians about Portland--its wide variety of used record stores. I made it to just a handful, and came home with way too many new (used) albums and CDs--all reasonably priced, and (most importantly) sales tax-free. My favorite of those I visited was the funereally named Vinyl Resting Place, way out in the North part of town. Fortunately my stack of finds (including Jimmy Rowles, Charles Lloyd with Keith Jarrett, Gerry Mulligan and Lee Konitz, Toots Theilmans with Joanne Brackeen, Paul Motian, etc.) wasn't quite heavy enough to push the suitcase over the limit--but it was close.