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Ian Carr

Ian Carr has been at the forefront of British modern jazz for over 40 years. He started playing trumpet in his brother Mike’s band, the EmCee 5 in the very early 1960s. This bebop-influenced band even boasted a young John McLaughlin in its lineup at one point.

He moved down to London from his home turf of the North East of England and then met up with various jazz musicians, including sax player Don Rendell. He teamed up with Don and together they formed one of the most influential British modern jazz quintets ever heard. The Rendell-Carr Quintet was something of a jazz supergroup, and although they only recorded five albums, for the EMI Columbia Lansdowne series label, these still command high secondhand prices on eBay. Apart from Rendell and Carr, the Quintet also featured Colin Purbrook on piano on their first album Shades of Blue only. Pianist Michael Garrick was recruited from their second album Dusk Fire onwards, and penned many of the compositions recorded. The Quintet was completed by Trevor Tomkins on drums and Dave Green on bass. Unusually and significantly, the Rendell-Carr Quintet was really the first British small jazz group to record only their own compositions, many of which were lengthy and distinctive.

During the 1960s, Carr recorded not only with the Rendell-Carr Quintet, but also with Michael Garrick’s various groups on some remarkable albums including Promises, Black Marigolds and The Heart is a Lotus. He also recorded with Joe Harriott and Amancio D’Silva, notably on Integration and Hum Dono.

BBC Radio 1 DJ Gilles Peterson recently selected no less than two tracks by the Rendell- Carr Quintet (”Black Marigolds” and “Dusk Fire”) for his first British jazz compilation album Impressed, which also featured Tubby Hayes, Ronnie Ross, Mike Garrick, Joe Harriott, Graham Collier and Harry Beckett. The Impressed series is a very important showcase for some of the great British modern jazz of the 1960s and 1970s, most of which had not seen the light of day since their original vinyl releases. Peterson clearly appreciated the importance of the Rendell-Carr Quintet.

Just prior to the Rendell-Carr Quintet split-up at the end of the 1960s, Ian Carr had attempted to move the Quintet into more adventurous, experimental areas employing the likes of percussionist Guy Warren. As witness to this mood for experimentation, Carr cut a record a few years earlier which was much freer than anything he had done before. Springboard, released on the Polydor label, is a now long-lost LP that offered some intriguing compositions, some by Carr, including a version of “Crazy Jane.” Although the album’s artwork did not mention this, the LP’s vinyl labels actually had printed on them “The Ian Carr/Jeff Clyne Quartet.” However, the album cover was more egalitarian and displayed the names of the other two musicians, Trevor Watts and John Stevens, in letters of equal prominence to those of Carr’s and Clyne’s. This album could have been seen to be and, in many ways was, an early Spontaneous Music Ensemble recording.

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Book Review

Neil Ardley & Ian Carr: Authoritative Studies Of Paradigm Shifting British Musicians

Read "Neil Ardley & Ian Carr: Authoritative Studies Of Paradigm Shifting British Musicians" reviewed by Chris May


Not-for-profit label Jazz In Britain is best known for carefully curated releases of historically important recordings made by British musicians in the 1960s and 1970s, most of them previously unavailable and sourced either from the musicians' own tape archives or those of BBC Radio. But from time to time, the label also publishes books. Vivien Ardley's Neil Ardley: Kaleidoscopes And Rainbows tells the story of one of Britain's most singular and, outside a niche following made up ...

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Album Review

The Don Rendell / Ian Carr Quintet: Warm Up

Read "Warm Up" reviewed by Chris May


British modern jazz was gaining new confidence in itself in 1965, when Warm Up, subtitled The Complete Live At The Highwayman 1965, was recorded. It needed to be. As Simon Spillett writes in his liner notes, at the time “British jazzmen bravely fought a battle on two fronts, one against the stranglehold of American influence, the other against the Beatles." British jazzwomen, of course, were fighting on three fronts; but we can discuss that another time. A fourth front, fought ...

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Album Review

Karl Jenkins: Penumbra II

Read "Penumbra II" reviewed by Chris May


Multi-instrumentalist Sir Karl William Pamp Jenkins CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) is a successful composer of classical, film and TV music. But before he went over to the Dark Side, the then plain old Karl Jenkins was a member of the Rebel Alliance and a pivotal presence in British jazz rock. He was a founding member of the pioneering Nucleus in 1969 and a member of Soft Machine from 1972 until the early 1980s.

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Album Review

Nucleus: Nucleus Live at the BBC

Read "Nucleus Live at the BBC" reviewed by Maurizio Comandini


Dio salvi la regina. E la BBC. L'emittente di stato britannica ha capito fin da subito che da quelle belle energie musicali, che spuntavano come l'erba di Hyde Park sotto al tiepido sole di quelle latitudini, passavano le scelte esistenziali e culturali delle nuove generazioni e sin dagli anni sessanta ha dato ampio spazio alla musica, premiando non solo il pop ma anche le proposte più articolate e di nicchia e ha conservato in archivio una buona parte di quelle ...

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Album Review

Don Rendell / Ian Carr Quintet: Blue Beginnings

Read "Blue Beginnings" reviewed by Chris May


Summer 2021 is proving to be the summer British jazz delved into its mid 1960s through mid 1970s album back catalogue and previously unreleased tape archive, with both major and specialist labels such as Jazz In Britain joining in the party. The spur to action is, of course, the new and unprecedented popularity of British jazz at home and abroad. The key to placing Blue Beginnings in its historical context is a quote from a contemporary review ...

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Album Review

Ian Carr: Solar Session

Read "Solar Session" reviewed by Chris May


One of the first European jazz bandleaders to embrace synthesizers, bass guitars and other electric instruments, trumpeter, composer and author Ian Carr forged a singularly British style of jazz-rock with his band Nucleus, which he formed in 1969 and with which he recorded a dozen albums through the 1970s. Carr had previously paid extensive dues in acoustic jazz, most notably as co-leader with saxophonist Don Rendell of the highly regarded, culturally inclusive Rendell-Carr Quintet from 1964 to 1969.

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Album Review

Neil Ardley: Kaleidoscope Of Rainbows Live '75

Read "Kaleidoscope Of Rainbows Live '75" reviewed by Chris May


One of the more obscure but loftiest masterpieces of British jazz, composer Neil Ardley's long-form suite Kaleidoscope Of Rainbows was released on the tiny Gull Records label in 1976. Its beauty and vitality have remained absolutely unsullied by the passing years and the album has been reissued a couple of times, most recently on Dusk Fire in 2005. In March 2021, the album has been joined by a previously unreleased live recording made at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall a year ...

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Obituary

Ian Carr, Jazz Trumpeter and Author of Miles Davis Biography, Dies

Ian Carr, Jazz Trumpeter and Author of Miles Davis Biography, Dies

Source: Michael Ricci

Ian Carr, a Scottish-born trumpeter who, like his formidable influence, Miles Davis, was an early practitioner of jazz-rock fusion and later repaid his artistic debt by writing Davis’s biography, died on Feb. 25 in London. He was 75.

The cause was complications after pneumonia and a series of mini- strokes, Alyn Shipton, Mr. Carr’s biographer, said in an e-mail message. An obituary on the Web site iancarrsnucleus.net — dedicated to the music of Mr. Carr and the band, Nucleus, which ...

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Music Industry

Notes from the Net: Ian Carr Mourned, Linda Presgrave Reviewed, Eric Person on the Road, Plus News, Reviews and More

Notes from the Net: Ian Carr Mourned, Linda Presgrave Reviewed, Eric Person on the Road, Plus News, Reviews and More

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman

Here's this week's compilation of news and links related to jazz, improvisation, and creative music in St. Louis, including musicians from the Gateway City, recent visitors, and coming attractions - now with even more boldfacing!* Alas, the only significant Miles Davis-related link this week is to the sad news that the British jazz trumpeter and writer Ian Carr died this past Wednesday at age 75. Long considered one of the top trumpet players on the British scene, Carr ...

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Obituary

Funeral Arrangements for Trumpeter Ian Carr

Funeral Arrangements for Trumpeter Ian Carr

Source: All About Jazz


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Obituary

Ian Carr: 1933 - 2009

Ian Carr: 1933 - 2009

Source: All About Jazz

The British trumpet player and author Ian Carr died in London on Wednesday 25th February aged 75. He began his musical career in Newcastle in a band led by his brother Mike. Among the younger musicians he played with were John McLaughlin, Eric Burdon and Alan Price. When he moved to London he co-led a quintet with sax player Don Rendell. His LPs with Rendell and with Michael Garrick, The New Jazz Orchestra and Neil Ardley in the late 60s ...

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Warm Up

Jazz In Britain
2023

buy

Penumbra II

Jazz In Britain
2022

buy

Kaleidoscope Of...

Jazz In Britain
2021

buy

Solar Session

Jazz In Britain
2021

buy

Blue Beginnings

Jazz In Britain
2021

buy

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