Listeners: This is just a reminder that the Ian Carey Quintet will be returning to SF's beautiful new club Coda this Wednesday night as part of their "Dinner & A Show" series, for our last scheduled show before September. It's a great place to play, with good food, drinks, sound, and music (if we have anything to say about it).We'll be playing lots of music from our new CD, Contextualizin' ("a digital masters seminar" --All About Jazz) and our previous album, plus several brand-spankin'-new originals which will be performed for the very first time (and possibly the second time as well depending on how well the first time goes).WHAT: The Ian Carey QuintetWHO: Ian Carey, trumpet & flugelhorn; Evan Francis, saxophone/flute; Adam Shulman, Fender Rhodes/Hammond B3; Fred Randolph, bass; Jon Arkin, drums; and special guestsWHEN: Wednesday, June 16, 7:00-11:00pmWHERE: Coda Jazz Supper Club, 1710 Mission St., San FranciscoHOW MUCH: Just $5!So please come on down, bring a friend or 5, and support some live local music!P.S. For a preview, enjoy this video from our previous Coda show below (playing a reboot of a composition from our first album called "Thirteen"), and an interview about the group by Brian McCoy of Examiner.com.Ian Carey Quintet: Thirteen (Live at Coda) from Ian Carey on Vimeo.

Hi folks--as you can see, the website has a new look (it was long overdue). Let me know if it's working for you. I'm planning on doing some more regular posting in the future (beyond announcements and self-promotion--because, let's face it, that gets boring), to share my thoughts on the jazz scene, the trumpet, what I've been listening to, etc.... RIGHT AFTER I get this self-promotion out of the way: first, I do want to mention that thanks to the great crowd that turned out for the CD release show, we've been invited back to Coda on Wednesday, June 16. I'm planning on having some new material ready to debut, so be sure to come down so you can say you were there THE NIGHT JAZZ CHANGED (or something).Also, the CD got a really nice review recently from The Jazz Page:

... the stuff that great jazz is made of, a blend of solid musicianship and writing. Carey's trumpet and fluegelhorn work has an inviting tone that can attract jazz aficianados and novices alike. The quintet is a terrific assemblage of talented players...

... you can read the whole thing here.Finally, as a reward for making it through the above promos, and as a preview for those who didn't make it to the release show, here's another tune from that night, the 5/4 harmonic maze called "Leap Year" (also available on CONTEXTUALIZIN'), featuring the talents of Evan Francis, Adam Shulman, Fred Randolph, and Jon Arkin. Enjoy!Ian Carey Quintet: Leap Year from Ian Carey on Vimeo.

Hi Folks--a big thank you to everyone who made it out to our CD release show last week at Coda (and thanks even to those who wanted to be there but couldn't make it). The show went really well, it's a very nice room, and as I said at the gig, after seeing so many jazz venues close lately, it's great to see a new one taking hold. (We're already talking about a return visit in June.)Here's some video from the show--our first tune of the night, "Sockdolager":More tunes to come--for now you can also check out "Sink/Swim."CONTEXTUALIZIN' @ ALL ABOUT JAZZ: Two big things going on for our new CD over at All About Jazz this week--first, the album is being featured in a "Listening Party" all this week, which means you can listen to it in its entirety for FREE! Check it out here (if you like what you hear and want to keep listening, pick up your own copy at CDBaby, iTunes, or Amazon).Second, we've gotten a nice review from the site by C. Michael Bailey:

Trumpeter Ian Carey's Contextualizin' is a digital Masters seminar. First, of course, is the music: solid, acoustic, composed, progressive, explorative. Second, is the exegesis, Carey's realization that, ..."what I played would help shape how I played..." Not technically dazzling, Carey, like Miles Davis, chooses to focus on which notes he plays (and doesn't) and their relative order as opposed to the tempo or technical exercise contained in the notes' performance. This shift in perspective moves the act of playing music from the sterile virtuosic into the informed, emotive realm, providing a solid balance...

How about that! (I was joking to a friend that I should shorten the quote to: "... like Miles Davis...") Read the whole review here.Finally, if you haven't yet, please take a second to become a fan of Ian Carey Jazz on Facebook, to keep up with all the latest gig announcements, videos, and links. Happy Spring!

Hi Listeners, and apologies for the long break in posting here. I'm currently in the middle of a 3-month sabbatical and have been hard at work in "the shed," practicing, listening, and working on new music for my group. (More about that in a moment.) But I'm breaking my radio silence to let you know about two shows coming up in April, both of which I'm pretty excited about.

The first is the release show for a new album by the great local pianist Ben Stolorow called I'll Be Over Here (click to sample or purchase). Ben was nice enough to ask me to do the design for the CD, and then even nicer enough to ask me to sit in with his trio during the second part of the release show. Here's the details:

WHAT: Ben Stolorow Trio CD Release Show
WHO: Ben Stolorow, piano; Greg Germain, drums; Ravi Abcarian, bass; + Ian Carey, trumpet & other special guests
WHEN: Friday, April 11, 8-11:30pm
WHERE: Anna's Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley (tel: 510-841-JAZZ)
HOW MUCH: $12 (there will also be a special one-night-only supercheap price of $5 for the CD!)

Next, I'm excited to announce the first Bay Area show for the Ian Carey Quintet in many moons. We're going to be playing Anna's in Berkeley (a few weeks after Ben's previously mentioned show). Although Fred, Adam, and Jon (of the original ICQ) are unable to make it, I've put together a heavy-hitting group of all-stars (each of whom has played my music before) to take up the torch--and of course the inimitable Evan Francis will be holding down his usual role as saxophonist/flautist and general inspiration machine. We'll be playing highlights from the Quintet book, as well as plenty of new compositions and arrangements (including tunes by Keith Jarrett, Andrew Hill, Adam Shulman, and Ornette Coleman), hot off the presses for the event. Here's the scoop:

WHAT: The Ian Carey Quintet
WHO: Ian Carey, trumpet & flugelhorn; Evan Francis, alto saxophone & flute; Matt Clark, piano; Kurt Kotheimer, bass; and special guest (direct from New York) Tim Bulkley, drums
WHEN: Wednesday, April 23, 8-11:30pm
WHERE: Anna's Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley (tel: 510-841-JAZZ)
HOW MUCH: $8 (Wednesday cheap!)

Finally, here's some video from an impromptu show last week at the Parc 55, where I filled in for Betty Fu while she recuperated from a little under-the-weatherness. It features me, Noah Shencker on bass, Adam Shulman on piano (unfortunately out of the frame) and the favorite improvising vocalist of everyone I know, Lorin Benedict on the microphone. The tune is "Just You..." Enjoy!

I may have mentioned before that I've been sitting in pretty regularly lately with the excellent vocalist Betty Fu, who performs on Thursdays and Fridays at the Parc 55 Hotel in downtown S.F. I enjoy playing with singers, and don't get to do it very often--plus she usually hires great rhythm sections, so it's a win-win.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, Betty decided to give videography a try as well, filming us with her cameraphone during an instrumental. It turned out pretty well, I think.

The short video is below--it features myself on trumpet, Adam Shulman on piano, and Noah Shencker on bass. The tune is "Out of Nowhere." Enjoy!

Via Rifftides, Doug Ramsey's excellent blog, here's some incredible recently unearthed footage of the legendary Clifford Brown appearing on the Soupy Sales (of "send little green pieces of paper" fame) television show. Clifford was one of the great bop trumpeters of all time during his short career, which ended tragically early when he was killed in a car accident at the age of 25.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo5giymiLj8]

Clifford's playing was one of my biggest early influences on the trumpet—my first jazz trumpet teacher, Tom Peron (a great improviser in his own right and long-time fixture in the Sacramento jazz community), introduced me to Clifford's music while I was in high school, and I spent many hours fumbling through transcriptions of his solos on tunes like "Stompin' at the Savoy" and "The Blues Walk." A few years later, another teacher, the great Charles Tolliver, wisely recommended ditching the 19th -Century Arban's etudes I'd been practicing and use Clifford solos to develop technique instead. (There's a place for Arban, of course, but I believe his point was that if you want to be a jazz player, you might as well practice jazz as much as possible.)

As I became interested in more modern players, I drifted away from Clifford for a few years, but recently began listening to him again—I particularly like his "West Coast" album, Jazz Immortal (which can be found in this boxed set), and the beautiful Clifford Brown with Strings.

Although I always felt that Clifford's delivery—that is, his vibrato, phrasing, etc.—was a little bit over-expressive for my tastes (just a matter of subjective personal preference, of course), his line construction, harmonic vocabulary, and overall phenomenal chops are unparalleled and should continue to inspire trumpeters (and improvisers on all instruments) for years to come.