Spring Update: Anna's 4/15, Make Out Room 5/4, Recording

Hi listeners--hope you're enjoying your spring and getting all the stimulus dollars you so richly deserve. It's been way too long since I posted an update, so here we go: I'm currently about a month into my annual music sabbatical, and enjoying having the time to practice, write, and listen. (And with so many people out of work, I'm definitely not taking it for granted.) It's also great to be able to get out to hear some of the great musicians around town, and hit some fine jam sessions at places like Savannah's, Club Deluxe, and 33 Revolutions.

I have two pieces of musical news to share--first, that the original Ian Carey Quintet (with Adam Shulman, Evan Francis, Fred Randolph, Jon Arkin and myself) has two local shows coming up. The first show:

What: The Ian Carey Quintet
When: Wednesday, April 15, 8pm
Where: Anna's Jazz Island, Berkeley
How Much: $10

Anna's is a great club, and one of the few jazz-only venues left in the Bay Area, so you should definitely come out to support it (and us)! We'll be doing a mix of originals, standards, and rarely-heard jazz classics. And the second show:

What: The Ian Carey Quintet + RW3 (with Kasey Knudsen, Nate Brenner, and Jon Arkin)
When: Monday, May 4, 9pm
Where: The Make Out Room, San Francisco
How Much: No cover

This will be a fun show in the Mission. We're sharing the billing with RW3 (a trio featuring Kasey Knudsen, Jon Arkin, and Nate Brenner, all great local improvisers). We'll probably be doing an all-original, more adventurous set than at Anna's--so each show should have its own different appeal. I encourage you to compare, contrast, and pester the band with questions about why my charts are so incomprehensible!

The other piece of news, and the reason it's great to have these gigs (besides the fact that it's great to have gigs at all these days), is that it'll be a chance for us to get fired up for (drum roll) ... recording our second album! That's right, we're finally getting back into the studio in May, which is exciting and terrifying (like many things these days).

Anyway, that's the latest. Oh, and one other thing: for any of my friends in the East-East Bay, I'm going to be playing a concert at Los Medanos College in Pittsburgh with the LMC Night Big Band on Tuesday, April 7, around 7:30pm. The band is led by local jazz heavyweights Erik Jekabson, Mike Zilber, and Jeff Marrs, and is chock-full of Bay Area talent. (And the Pittsburgh High School Jazz Band is opening up.) So come on out!