Gigs: Berkeley 4/12, Oakland 4/17 + Bonus Audio

Hi folks, hope everyone's swinging through spring and enjoying the weather while avoiding giant villainous clouds of pollen. I wanted to let you know about a couple of shows this week, plus give you a few musical snippets to hopefully whet your appetites.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, 7-10pmNext 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:

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:

Audio, GigsIan1 Comment