Hello folks! If you missed our CD release show last week, you have another chance to see this band and hear music from our new CD on Kabocha Records, Interview Music. (The title is sort of an inside joke about the jazz scene. More on that here.)This Sunday (4/24) at 4pm we are thrilled to be returning to Chez Hanny in San Francisco's Portola District, an intimate "jazz salon" that has been presenting unique concerts for over a decade.The band will feature my longtime partners in crime Kasey Knudsen on alto saxophone, Sheldon Brown on bass clarinet and tenor saxophone, Jon Arkin on drums, Fred Randolph on bass, Adam Shulman on piano, and myself on trumpet. We will be playing all the music from the new album (including my four-part title suite) plus new expanded arrangements of music from our previous albums Sink/Swim, Contextualizin', and Roads & Codes ("★★★★½” —DownBeat).Chez Hanny (click link for more info) is located at 1300 Silver Avenue, San Francisco. $20 donation is requested. Email reservations are strongly recommended (see previous link) as seating is first come, first served (doors open at 3:30pm). I hope to see you there!BUT: If you can't make it and still want to hear Interview Music, the album is now available on CDBaby , Amazon, and iTunes . And you can hear a full track from the suite here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcF9k56U4DUALSO: A few weeks ago I was fortunate to be invited to do an interview with Alisa Clancy on our great local jazz station KCSM to talk about the album. You can listen to the interview below.http://iancareyjazz.com/audio/KCSM_interview_040816_edit.mp3ALSO ALSO: I'm going to be playing this Saturday afternoon with the great drummer and composer Bryan Bowman and his quintet at a new house concert venue in the East Bay. The show is at 4pm at 1034 Talbot Ave. in Albany, $10 donation requested. Thanks!

Hello Folks! It's been a loooooong road (including planning, composing, rehearsal, more composing, tweaking, more rehearsal, premiering, more tweaking, more performing, more rehearsing, recording, listening, mixing, more listening, more mixing, mastering, designing, running a crowdfunding campaign, unpacking, promoting, mailing, and more rehearsing), but the destination is finally in sight.I am of course talking about the CD release show for Interview Music, the fourth album from the Ian Carey Quintet+1, happening Saturday, April 9 at 8pm, at one of our favorite venues, The Sound Room, in the bustling downtown Oakland arts district.The show will feature all the music from the album (though not necessarily in order), plus new expanded arrangements of music from our previous albums Sink/Swim (2006), Contextualizin' (2010), and 2013's Roads & Codes ("★★★★½" —Downbeat), performed by my longtime partners in crime Adam Shulman (piano), Kasey Knudsen (alto saxophone), Sheldon Brown (bass clarinet & tenor saxophone), Fred Randolph (bass) and Jon Arkin (drums).Tickets will be $15 advance (available here) or $20 at the door, but will include a free copy of the CD with admission! And rest assured that the great majority of your dough goes directly to this hard-working band (as The Sound Room is one of the most musician-friendly venues around).Also: on Thursday April 7 at 9am, I will be joining Alisa Clancy at our local treasure KCSM Jazz 91 FM to talk about the album (and play some selections), so please tune in if you're up!Finally, here's some more about the album:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UovLNqQiE5UHope to see you at the show!

Hi folks, I'm very excited to announce the release of the new album by my Quintet+1, Interview Music, this April. The centerpiece of the record is the 55-minute, four-movement title suite. The video below will tell you more about the album, the piece, and the outstanding band:[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UovLNqQiE5U[/embed]The album was made possible by the support of the generous donors to our crowdfunding campaign, to whom I am extremely grateful! Thanks also to San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music and the California Jazz Conservatory for their early support for the composition and premiere of this piece. (You can read an extended article about the album here. )We'll be doing two performances in the Bay Area to celebrate the album's release--the official CD release show at Oakland's great downtown venue The Sound Room on April 9th, and an intimate afternoon performance at Chez Hanny in San Francisco on April 24th. I hope you're able to make it to one or both!

Friends, Family, Fans & Supporters:It's been a while since my last update! A lot has gone on, including a very busy musical time (including performances with my new band IJKL, Sam Bevan and his quintet, and Arun Luthra's Konnakol Jazz project), followed by a not-very-busy musical time (while I recuperate from handing off a kidney to my dad, which is surprisingly not something they like you to play trumpet right after doing).But today I wanted to​ tell you about my new album Interview Music: A Suite for Quintet+1, which I'm hoping to release April 2016, with your help. It's been in the works for over two years, and we're in the home stretch of the process, which I'm really excited about. The centerpiece of the album is a four-part, hourlong suite which is a culmination of over a decade of growth with an amazing group of musicians--Adam Shulman, Fred Randolph, Jon Arkin, Kasey Knudsen, and Sheldon Brown.[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EueuB8C8-FU[/embed]And now we're asking for your help to make it possible for us to make it down the last mile and to a finished CD we can release to the world. We've come a long way--through composing, rehearsing, premiering, recording, and mixing--but we still have some very important expenses remaining, so we're launching a crowdfunding campaign through Indiegogo (one of the most trusted crowdfunding sites on the planet) to help raise funds to make it through this last mile of the production process.  (These are of course expenses which in the good old days would've been fronted by a record label, but that is some spilt milk that's definitely not worth crying over.) (Just kidding, I cry over it all the time.)Of course we're not just asking for a handout--we offer perks for contributors at many levels, ranging from digital downloads for $10, to CDs for $15, up to posters, signed copies of the original score, concert tickets, and even producer credit. Any amount you're able to contribute, even if it's just preordering the CD, would be very helpful and appreciated.So please visit our campaign page at http://igg.me/at/interview-music to learn more about the campaign, the band, and the music. And please feel tell anyone you think might be interested in the project, or share on Facebook or Twitter.Thanks very much for your support! 

Hello Fans of Interesting Music!

I'm excited to invite you to a very special performance next Saturday: my Quintet+1, which has done me the great honor of digging deeply into my music for the past decade, will be returning to The Sound Room in Oakland's Downtown arts district for our first show of 2015. 

The Sound Room, a labor of love by proprietors Robert Bradsby and Karen Van Leuven, has made a significant positive contribution to the downtown district and the East Bay jazz scene, and is one of our favorite places to play. (It's also very close to a variety of happening restaurants and BART.)

The Quintet+1 (Kasey Knudsen on alto saxophone, Adam Shulman on piano, Fred Randolph on bass, Jon Arkin on drums, Sheldon Brown on bass clarinet, flute, and saxophone, and myself on trumpet and flugelhorn) will be playing original music from our previous 3 albums (2006's Sink/Swim, 2010's Contextualizin', and 2013's Roads & Codes), plus selections from my new 4-part suite "'Interview Music," as well as arrangements of music by some of my favorite composers like Charles Ives and Jimmy Giuffre. We are fresh out of the studio (recording our next album, due in the fall) and the band is sounding great—judge for yourself in the video below. 

We hope very much to see you next week!

WHAT: The Ian Carey Quintet+1WHERE: The Sound Room, 2147 Broadway, OaklandWHEN: Saturday, May 16, 8pm (doors open at 7)TICKETS: $15 (available here or at the door)

Musical Folks:I wanted to give you an advance heads-up about a very exciting show I've got coming up next month--I'm happy to announce that my Quintet+1 (with pianist Adam Shulman, bassist Fred Randolph, drummer Jon Arkin, alto saxophonist Kasey Knudsen, and multi-woodwindist Sheldon Brown) will be giving its first performance of 2014 by returning to that great spot in downtown Oakland, The Sound Room (site of our really enjoyable CD release show for Roads & Codes last year--see some footage here).Even better, we'll be sharing the bill with one of my favorite local ensembles, the Nathan Clevenger Group. Nathan is an outstanding composer/guitarist and his music has been consistently inspiring to me since I first encountered it, not least because we've had a habit of hiring some of the same great musicians. (See a tune from the Group's most recent amazing performance here.)Each group will be performing one long set of new original music and selections from our recent albums. (Nathan's group will go first, with my group following around 9:30.)WHAT: New Music for Sextets: Ian Carey Quintet+1 & Nathan Clevenger GroupWHEN: Friday, May 23, 8pmWHERE: The Sound Room, 2147 Broadway, OaklandTICKETS: $13 adv., $15 doorMore details to come, I hope to see you all for what promises to be an exciting show!