Projects

The IAN CAREY QUINTET+1 (with Adam Shulman, piano; Kasey Knudsen, alto saxophone; Sheldon Brown, woodwinds; Fred Randolph, bass; Jon Arkin, drums; and Carey on trumpet) has been bringing its blend of original creative jazz to venues across the Bay Area for over 15 years. Begun in a two-year biweekly run at San Francisco's House of Shields in 2002, the group expanded its repertoire, eventually becoming a vehicle for Carey's adventurous compositions and arrangements.

The Quintet+1 has released five albums: 2006's Sink/Swim ("An exciting set of music with a heavy-hitting lineup of musicians" —Greg Bridges, KCSM Jazz 91), 2010's Contextualizin' ("I can’t stop playing this CD” —Marc Myers, Jazzwax.com), 2013's Roads & Codes, which received 4-½ stars from DownBeat Magazine and was featured on many critics’ “Best of 2013” lists, and 2016's Interview Music, featuring the 55-minute title suite composed by Carey and commissioned by the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music. In 2017, Carey was awarded a New Jazz Works grant by Chamber Music America to compose a major new work for the group, which was premiered at the SFJAZZ Center's Joe Henderson Lab; the resulting work, Fire in My Head: The Anxiety Suite, was released as the group’s fifth album on Slow & Steady Records in 2020.

The Quintet+1 has appeared at many venues around the Bay including The Sound Room, California Jazz Conservatory, The Back Room, and Chez Hanny, and appeared at San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music's SFMusic Day in 2016.

WOOD METAL PLASTIC, the new ensemble from Ian Carey, "combines the delicately calibrated dynamics of a chamber ensemble with alternating sections of close voicings and free improvisation, a tricky marriage that requires keen ears and bountiful imagination." (Andrew Gilbert, Berkeleyside). This septet features luminaries from across the Bay Area's jazz, classical, and new music scenes (including bassist Lisa Mezzacappa, saxophonist Kasey Knudsen, violinists Alisa Rose and Mia Bella D’Augelli, cellist Jessica Ivry, and drummer Jon Arkin), premiering a new book of compositions by Carey commissioned by InterMusicSF. The project’s influences range from chamber jazz pioneers Jimmy Giuffre and Charles Mingus, to chamber music titans including Villa-Lobos and Ravel, to free improvisation adventurers Ornette Coleman and Steve Lacy, while staying true to Carey’s love of dense counterpoint and lush harmonies.

The group’s debut album, Strange Arts, is now available!

Mainstays on the Bay Area jazz scene, Ian Carey and Ben Stolorow have released highly regarded albums as leaders but found their way to the duo format after several satisfying gigs. They chose to capture their singular improvisational ensemble on record on the 2014 album Duocracy ("a lively trip down a straightahead path, deriving a refreshing joy from familiar sights" —DownBeat).

Focusing on classic tunes by master songsmiths like Gershwin, Kern, and Rodgers and Hart, as well as less-well-known gems by composers from Henry Mancini to Thelonious Monk, Carey and Stolorow emphasize intimacy, interplay, and spontaneity.

"Carey has a wonderful sound, strong and rich. Stolorow is a thoughtful accompanist, and full of ideas. These chaps have found a nice musical place with this duo effort, and the results are thoroughly enjoyable." —Jersey Jazz

TAKOYAKI 3 (with Adam Shulman, B3 organ, Carey on trumpet, and a rotating cast of local all-star drummers) is the streamlined, street-food-style version of Ian Carey's successful Quintet+1. (TAKOYAKI 4 adds saxophonist James Mahone.) The group's repertoire includes original compositions from Carey's and Shulman's albums, rarely-heard tunes by composers like Lennie Tristano, Ornette Coleman, Herbie Nichols, Billy Strayhorn, Steve Swallow, Thelonious Monk, and Neil Young, as well as some of the band's favorite standards. The group has been heard at venues around the bay including Yoshi's Lounge, the Acutal Cafe, and Bird & Beckett.