Hi folks, I'm going to be offering a workshop on February 18 (at 11:30am) at California Jazz Conservatory in Berkeley on triad-pair-based scales and how to use them. (That sounds more complex than it really is, but these scales have become a big part of my own language.)Here's a short video with a little preview:[embed]https://youtu.be/iPXQxgmZSIY[/embed]The workshop is open to anyone with basic knowledge of jazz harmony and you should definitely bring your instrument. You can find out more about the class and register here.

Well: it's been a rough start to the year for pretty much everyone, and I would be lying if I said there weren't times that music seemed like a minor and self-centered pursuit. But that's exactly why it's been a welcome break to let myself get very excited about a show coming up this month.It will be my first gig as a leader working with the great local organization Jazz in the Neighborhood, which was founded by trumpet legend Mario Guarneri and  has been producing a wide variety of shows featuring Bay Area artists for several years (I've been fortunate to be on several as a sideman including with the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra and various guests). JITN's M.O. includes guaranteed wages for the musicians (a lifesaver and unfortunately a rarity these days) and features emerging artists for portions of each performance; they're doing it right and I sincerely hope they will be around to enrich the community of artists and listeners for a long time.This will also be my first performance at Community Music Center, and my first San Francisco show as a solo leader in quite a while (although S.F. is in the Quintet+1's DNA—we got our start at The House of Shields, after all). I'm thrilled to have the band together again, this time with two special guests. First is the amazing Hamir Atwal on drums—I've been lucky to have quite a few opportunities to play with Hamir over the past year or so, and every one of them has been an adventure. We'll also be joined for the first time by amazing multi-reedist and recent local repatriate Steven Lugerner, who will be filling in the Sheldon Brown chair on bass clarinet and baritone sax (!). The group will be rounded out by the outstanding usual suspects Kasey Knudsen on alto saxophone, Adam Shulman on piano, Fred Randolph on bass and me on trumpet.The show will begin with an opening set featuring two excellent local student players (backed by Fred, Adam, and Hamir), and then we'll be performing selections from our past three albums, including works from Interview Music (2016), Roads & Codes (2013), and Contextualizin' (2010), some of which have never been performed in Quintet+1 format before! Here are the details:WHAT: The Ian Carey Quintet+1WHEN: Friday, February 17, 8pmWHERE: Community Music Center, 544 Capp Street, San FranciscoTICKETS: Available hereFinally, for no reason at all, here's a video of me playing Coltrane's "Giant Steps"—I recorded this to help demonstrate my qualifications for teaching a class about that gnarly tune last month. I'm also offering a workshop on improvising with triad pairs (a very fun and interesting way of dealing with a variety of chord changes) on  February 18, check it out![embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm17BUAZJB0&feature=youtu.be[/embed]

Hello folks! It's been a stressful couple of months, but I've been trying to Be Like Bob (above) and channel it all into the music. The end of 2016 brought some gratifying mentions of my album Interview Music in year-end top ten lists, including The Mercury News ("an exquisite balance between [Carey's] ambitious compositional vision and his design to showcase his superlative cast of improvisers") and Bird is the Worm. And I feel fortunate to have some exciting events coming up, including...

Bryan Bowman Quintet in Berkeley & Vallejo

This introspective group plays the swinging, forward-thinking music of drummer and composer Bryan Bowman (you can listen to a track from our 2015 album Like Minds here), and features some of my favorite players: Bob Kenmotsu on tenor sax, Matt Clark on piano (and Luke Westbrook on guitar), and John Wiitala (and Dan Feiszli) on bass. We're going to be playing twice this month: on Saturday, January 14 at 8pm we'll be at the great new Berkeley venue The Back Room ($15); and on Sunday January 15 at 5pm we're at the historic Empress Theater in Vallejo ($20), sponsored by the Vallejo Jazz Society.Other local shows this month: Don Alberts' Renaissance Band at 7 Mile House in Brisbane on Tuesday January 24, and Tony Corman's Morchestra with Nic Bearde at Bach Dancing & Dynamite in Half Moon Bay on Sunday January 29th at 4:30p.

Jazzschool Workshops: Giant Steps & More

For those of you who are students of the music (of any age): I'm offering two workshops at California Jazz Conservatory's Jazzschool Community Music Program's spring session:Stepping Into Giant Steps (January 21): A two-hour deep dive into one of John Coltrane's most famous and challenging compositions, geared towards taking the fear out of those gnarly chord changes.Modern Improvisation: Triad Pair Scales (February 18): Want to learn to navigate familiar chord changes in an interesting new way? This workshop takes a deep dive into the technique of creating and using versatile six-note scales by combining pairs of triads.And just a reminder: I'm also available for private lessons!

Coming in February: IC Quintet+1 in Berkeley & Healdsburg, Takoyaki 4 in SF

I'm thrilled to have two opportunities to play with my Quintet+1 (Adam Shulman, Sheldon Brown, Kasey Knudsen, Fred Randolph, plus special guests Hamir Atwal and Steven Lugerner) next month:

• On February 17, we'll be at The Back Room in Berkeley for an event sponsored by the great local organization Jazz in the Neighborhood.
• On February 23, we'll be playing at the after-party for "Jazz on the Menu" at Costeaux in Healdsburg, presented by the Healdsburg Jazz Festival.

I'm also looking forward to playing with my organ-based group Takoyaki 4 (Adam Shulman on organ, Hamir Atwal on drums, and special guest James Mahone on tenor) at local institution Bird & Beckett Books in San Francisco on February 25.Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you soon!

Hello folks! Here's an update about some upcoming performances I'm really excited about. Hope to see you at some of them!Nathan Clevenger Group in OaklandThis Thursday night (9/1) in Oakland, I'm thrilled to be playing again with one of my favorite bands—the Nathan Clevenger Group ("includes many of the scene’s leading figures, but he’s created a sound that stands out from the crowd... he makes brilliant use of the many colors at his disposal.” –Andrew Gilbert, KQED). In addition to Nathan's guitar and compositions, this version of the group includes Kasey Knudsen on alto sax, Rachel Condry on bass clarinet, Jason Levis on drums, Lisa Mezzacappa on bass, Tim DeCillis on vibraphone, and myself on trumpet. The show is at Octopus Literary Salon in downtown Oakland, a cozy cafe that's been putting on some extraordinarily happening shows. (The show starts at 8, and the opening act is Bristle, another astounding chamber music-meets-free improvisation unit.) More info about the show here.Ian Carey Quintet+1 at SFMusic DayFor the past few years, the great local arts organization San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music has been presenting an annual day full of free chamber music at the SF Veterans Building, and this year, on Sunday, September 25, I'm very happy to bringing my Quintet+1 to participate (along with a cast of hundreds including heavy hitters like Kronos, Rova, Myra Melford & Ben Goldberg, and many more). We'll be playing a half-hour set at 3:30 in the Education Studio. More info here.Electric Squeezebox Orchestra Meets Brazil!I'm also excited to be playing several times this month with the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, SF's great original big band, back at Doc's Lab in North Beach after their summer break. Sunday, September 4, I'll be performing with the band, playing their usual (but unusual!) assortment of music all written by members of the band (including me!). The following Sunday, Sept. 11, we'll be joined by special guest the Brazilian saxophonist Spok (aka Inaldo Cavalcante de Albuquerque), performing the music called Frevo, which he has pioneered in Northern Brazil. More about this show here.Also...A reminder that my new album, Interview Music ("an incredible piece of music… a superlative work.” —Brad Stone, The Creative Source, Soul and Jazz Radio), is now available on CDBaby, Amazon, and iTunes.And just because, here's a video of an improvised duet that my friend the great trumpeter Darren Johnston and I recorded before a gig last month at opposite ends of the huge Festival Pavilion building at Fort Mason (with its 8-second reverberation). Enjoy![embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWNTj3xZVOE[/embed]Improvised Duet, Darren Johnston & Ian Carey, trumpets. Festival Pavilion, Ft. Mason, San Francisco, August 21, 2016.

Hello folks! I'm just writing to tell you about a few musical things I've got going on in the near future.

Have You Heard?

This Monday night I am very happy to be featured on one of my favorite radio shows, Have You Heard?, hosted by the great saxophonist Patrick Wolff. Each week Patrick does a deep dive on the work of a single artist (usually someone on the less well-known side) in a way rarely heard on this coast. For this show we'll be hearing tunes from several of my albums (plus an unreleased track of a work for big band) as well as having some conversation about the jazz world in my usual curmudgeonly fashion. You can hear the show Monday at 9pmon KCSM; the show will be also be available for one week after at the Have You Heard? website.

Jazzschool Classes

I'm happy to be offering three classes this summer as part of California Jazz Conservatory's Jazzschool summer session, geared toward intermediate musicians of all ages:

• Demystifying Coltrane Changes: A deep look into how to take the fear out of learning daunting tunes like Giant Steps and Countdown, including theory, listening and in-class playing. More info here.
• Counterpoint & Beyond: An introduction to one of my favorite compositional toolboxes, with an eye toward real-world contemporary and jazz applications. More info here.
• Modernize Your Language: A look at three ways to take the next step beyond bebop and mode-based improvising, with an eye on integrating with the student's existing language, through theoretical discussion and in-class playing. More here.

If you or someone you know might be interested, please check out the links above to find out more and register. Class space is limited! (And a reminder: I'm also accepting new private students in trumpet, improvisation, composition, ear training and harmony.)

Asian-American Orchestra Performances

This weekend and next, I'll be making my debut with percussionist & composerAnthony Brown's Asian-American Orchestra. The group consists of an eclectic (in a good way!) mix of western and eastern instruments including shakuhachi and sheng (Chinese mouth organ) as well as a burning jazz ensemble. For these performances we'll be joined by the Ojalá Batá percussion ensemble, plus poet Genny Lim and vocalist Amikaelya Proudfoot Gaston. We'll be performing original works by Brown as well as a new realization of Max Roach's classic Freedom Now Suite (you all know I don't do plain old tributes).We'll be doing two performances this Sunday June 5 at the San Francisco International Arts Festival at Fort Mason, followed by a show on Saturday June 18 at Musically Minded Academy in Oakland. Hope to see you!

Also...

I'm happy to announce that I am among the lucky crop of grant recipients for San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music's 2016 Musical Grant Program, to compose a set of pieces for my brand new 7-piece ensemble Wood/Metal/Plastic, premiering next year. And just a reminder that my new album Interview Music ("complex chamber music with solo space" - Doug Ramsey, Rifftides) is now available on CDBaby, Amazon, and iTunes. You can hear a free track from the album below. Thanks![embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFjbnC96zQg[/embed]

Interview Music, the new album from my Quintet+1, is officially out there, and some very gratifying reviews have been coming in.First, from Doug Ramsey at the great music blog Rifftides:

In the articulate liner notes for his fifth album, Carey explains that he writes music not to label it “about something” in order to snag foundation grants, but to employ what he’s learned and make it work for him and his players. Interview Music does that. Even better, it works for the listener. ... His sextet plays the five-part suite with drive, wit, swing and a palpable unity of purpose. It is complex chamber music with solo space for Carey, long an impressive trumpeter; bass clarinetist Sheldon Brown; alto saxophonist Kasey Knudsen; pianist Adam Shulman; bassist Fred Randolph; and drummer Jon Arkin. They are among the cream of the Bay Area’s jazz community. In a victory for his creative policy, the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music supported Interview Music with a grant despite its not being “about something,” which, of course, it is. It’s about music.

From The Jazz Page:

[Carey] has returned with an ambitious new recording that succeeds in its effort. Interview Music is a fantastic suite that sees some of Carey’s most adventurous writing matched with truly outstanding performances. ... While the production is one of some range, it is accessible, even as weaves and winds its way forward. ... Carey’s writing affords each of his fellow players many moments to exhibit their depth of talent, and in the process, allows the entire project to shine.

And a listener left this very thoughtful review on the album's iTunes page:

Very inspiring to hear this kind of sophisticated composition and playing coming out of the Bay Area. As an ex professional trumpet player who grew up in Bay Area and studied and played in NYC, this is really the first time I've encountered such a high degree of post-bop compositional creativity and craft come out of the Bay Area with the exception of Joe Henderson of course. Also very fine playing all-around, with a special shout out to Ian who is obviously a really accomplished trumpeter and improviser.

The album also got mentions from Marc Myers' Jazzwax ("this abstract original suite for quintet led by trumpeter Carey has classical overtones") and Tom Hull ("a sprawling suite with four parts and an interlude, a fine example of postbop composition and arrangement"). It's great to know people are giving it a listen, 15-minute tracks and all!Finally, here's another sample track from the album, the interlude and first half of the fourth movement. If you'd like to hear more, please pick up a copy for yourself![embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F343FNgYzBw[/embed]