Hello folks! It's been a happily busy musical spring so far (in spite of the daily horrors of the news), and I wanted to let you know about a few upcoming events.

CJC Workshop: Fluency in All 12 Keys

This Sunday (4/9) at 11:30am I'll be at California Jazz Conservatory/Jazzschool in Berkeley, kicking off the Contemporary Jazz Improvisation Workshop Series, a four-part educational series for musicians featuring different local players exploring a variety of topics. My focus will be "Developing Fluency in All 12 Keys," and I'll be looking at several strategies  for getting comfortable in the intimidating key signature-hinterlands. Open to anyone with basic knowledge of jazz theory, and also available on a single class-basis. Registration info here.

Asian American Orchestra at SFJAZZ Poetry Festival Sunday (4/9)

Sunday evening at 8pm, I'm excited to be joining Anthony Brown's Asian American Orchestra and SFJAZZ Poet Laureate Genny Lim at the Joe Henderson Lab as part of the SFJAZZ Poetry Festival. We'll be performing our updated version of Max Roach's We Insist: Freedom Now Suite (with new poetry by Lim). Information and tickets available here.

ESO in San Francisco (4/16)

On Easter Sunday evening (4/16) from 6:30-9pm, I'll be back with the indomitable Electric Squeezebox Orchestra (directed by Erik Jekabson), which has been holding down its residency at Doc's Lab in North Beach for over two years, performing only original arrangements by members of the band and other local composers (like me!). We'll be joined by a special quest, the phenomenal clarinetist Ben Goldberg. More info here.Finally, for no reason other than that it's good, here's some video from my performance last month with the Adam Shulman Sextet. Enjoy![embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVT0wHwLRZ8[/embed]

 Hi folks! Two shows coming up that I'm excited about. First up is Thursday, Feb. 23, when the Ian Carey Quintet+1 (with Kasey Knudsen, Adam Shulman, Fred Randolph, Hamir Atwal, and me) will be performing at the after-party for the Healdsburg Jazz Festival's "Jazz on the Menu" fundraiser. Opening up for us will be the Healdsburg High jazz band. The details:WHAT: Ian Carey Quintet+1 & Healdsburg High School Jazz BandWHEN: Thursday, February 23, 7pmWHERE: Costeaux French Bakery, 417 Healdsburg Ave., HealdsburgTICKETS: Available hereThen, Saturday, February 25, my group TAKOYAKI 4 (the Takoyaki 3 organ trio of Adam Shulman and Hamir Atwal, plus special guest saxophonist James Mahone) will be making our first appearance at the great local home for jazz Bird & Beckett Books in San Francisco. We'll be playing original music by members of the group plus some jazz rarities.WHAT: Ian Carey's TAKOYAKI 4 featuring James MahoneWHEN: Saturday, February 25, 8pmWHERE: Bird & Beckett, 653 Chenery St, San FranciscoTICKETS: $10 donation requestedI hope to see you there!

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.