Takoyaki 3 Shows This Week, New 'Roads & Codes' Reviews + More CD Release Video

Hi folks, big musical week starting tomorrow:TAKOYAKI 3, the streamlined, street-food-style version of my Quintet+1, is playing twice in the next week--on Saturday night (3/23) in North Beach at Rose Pistola, and next Wednesday (3/27) at Yoshi's Lounge in San Francisco. The group features Adam Shulman on organ, Jon Arkin on drums, and myself on trumpet & flugelhorn, and we'll be playing original music from Roads & Codes, as well as select standards and underappreciated classics by jazz composers like Herbie Nichols, Ornette Coleman, and Lennie Tristano.WHAT: Ian Carey's Takoyaki 3WHERE: Rose Pistola, 532 Columbus Ave., San FranciscoWHEN: Saturday, March 23, 9-11:30pmHOW MUCH: No cover!ANDWHAT: Yoshi's Local Talent Series presents Ian Carey's Takoyaki 3WHERE: Yoshi's Lounge, 1330 Fillmore., San FranciscoWHEN: Wednesday, March 27, 6:30-9:30pmHOW MUCH: Also no cover!I've also got two other gigs this weekend for those of you of the East Bay persuasion: Saturday (3/23) daytime, I'll be playing with the Betty Shaw Quartet at the Cheese Board in Berkeley from 11:45am-2:45pm, and Sunday evening I'll be playing with the Full Count Trio (Ollie Dudek, myself, and Jeffrey Burr) at Cato's Ale House in Oakland from 5:30-8:30pm.Next, there have been more reviews for Roads & Codes trickling in, including a very nice one from The Pittsburgh Tribune Review:

Carey is almost as good a cartoonist as he is a musician. The horn man created a comic-book-like cover for his “Roads & Codes” that talks about the difficulty of selling jazz these days. Inside, cartoon depictions of the players in the band decorate his liner notes, set in the same typeface as the word balloons on the cover. While all this cover material is impressive, the music — happy to say — is even better. The tunes are catchy and played by a sextet that, at times, sounds bigger, offering backup statements and horn harmonies that create a rich sound.

... plus a review from Ken Frankling's Jazz Notes ("a marvel for its lush and intricate music and musical concepts, as well as Carey-designed packaging and illustrations that make it a clear favorite to win the year’s cleverest design"), another mention from James Hale, who wrote my DownBeat review ("one of the freshest albums I've heard in a long time"), a spin for "Count Up" and what according to Google Translate is a nice review from Radio France's Alex Dutihl ("Parution de «Roads & Codes» du trompettiste Ian Carey chez Kabocha, dont la pochette est illustrée par une bande dessinée qu'il a lui-même créée. Encouragé par Dave Douglas en ce qui concerne la musique, il poursuit parallèlement une carrière d'illustrateur"--couldn't have said it better myself!), and from one of my favorite jazz blogs, the great Doug Ramsey's Rifftides (the post title--"Recent Listening: Carey, Mingus, Ellington"--poses a serious threat of causing my brain to explode):

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. Kasey Knudsen, the +1 of the band’s new name, spells Evan Francis on alto saxophone, leaving Francis to concentrate on tenor sax and flute. With the audacity of her conception and sound, Knudsen is a stimulant. The series of blues choruses and phrases that she and Francis exchange on “Nemuri Kyoshirō” is an album high point. The three-horn front line expands Carey’s arranging palette beyond that of his 2010 CD Contextualizin’, allowing richer ensembles and deeper voicings in figures behind soloists. Pianist Adam Shulman, bassist Fred Randolph and drummer Jon Arkin constitute one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s finest rhythm sections. Carey acknowledges that nearly half of his compositions are under the influence of his heroes Charles Ives (“West London”), Igor Stravinksy (“Andante”), John Coltrane (“Count Up”) and Neil Young (“Dead Man [Theme]”). The influences are points of departure for the individualism of Carey’s writing.

Finally, here's some new video from our show at the Sound Room last month--this is the aforementioned "Nemuri Kyoshiro," featuring a live rematch of that epic saxophone battle: