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

The Quintet+1 (“a highly skilled band of improvisers” –Downbeat) 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; the resulting work, Fire in My Head: The Anxiety Suite, was released as the group’s fifth album on Slow & Steady Records in 2020.

 

IAN CAREY, trumpet & compositions

IAN CAREY is a San Francisco Bay Area–based jazz trumpeter, composer, and educator who “asks deep musical questions and comes up with compelling answers” (Bill Kirchner, editor, The Oxford Companion to Jazz).

In addition to the IAN CAREY QUINTET+1, which has been performing his original compositions for over a decade and has been featured on five albums including the 2020 release Fire in My Head; and WOOD METAL PLASTIC, a 7-piece group which “combines the delicately calibrated dynamics of a chamber ensemble with alternating sections of close voicings and free improvisation” (Andrew Gilbert, Berkeleyside) and released its debut album Strange Arts in 2024.

Born in Binghamton, New York, and educated in California (where he attended Folsom High School) and New York City (where he attended the New School and lived for seven years), Ian has lived and worked in the Bay Area since 2001, performing with local bandleaders and ensembles including the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, the Circus Bella All-Star Band, Anthony Brown's Asian American Orchestra, Mark Levine, the Nathan Clevenger Group, Greg Johnson, Lewis Jordan's Music at Large, the James Mahone Quintet, Anne Sajdera, Suzanna Smith, the Morchestra, the duo B. Experimental Band, and the Lost Trio; as well as appearing with visiting luminaries including John Daversa, Anton Schwartz, and Satoko Fujii. As a composer, Ian has received commissions from Chamber Music America and Intermusic SF, and was named as one of “12 Bay Area Composers You Should Know” by SFJAZZ in 2018. He was included in a list of “The Elite 150 of Early- and Mid-Career Jazz Masters,” in Ted Gioia’s How to Listen to Jazz (2016), and was the subject of a 2021 profile in the International Trumpet Guild Journal titled “Ian Carey: Contrast Can Be Just as Effective as Synchronicity.” His column "Learn the Words!" was featured in the April 2020 issue of Downbeat.

Ian is on the faculty of Sonoma State University's Jazz Studies program, where he serves as trumpet instructor and director of the Concert Jazz Ensemble, and has been a visiting instructor at Stanford University, California Jazz Conservatory, Oaktown Jazz Workshops, and the Stanford Jazz Workshop.

 

KASEY KNUDSEN, alto saxophone

Kasey Knudsen is a San Francisco-based saxophonist, composer & educator. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Jazz Composition from Berklee College of Music in 2002. She has been dubbed "one of the region's most esteemed saxophonists"  (Andrew Gilbert, San Francisco Classical Voice, 2018) and has "quietly become one of the essential voices in the Bay Area jazz scene" (Andrew Gilbert, East Bay Express, 2014). Knudsen was included in a list of "10 Female Instrumentalists Who Redefine Jazz" by Alexa Peters of Paste Magazine (2016) and voted "One of the Best Female Jazz Musicians in the East Bay" (CBS, SF local Bay Area, 2013).

As a composer, Knudsen has been commissioned by the San Jose Jazz 'New Works Festival' to write a piece and create an accompanying film in response to the global pandemic (2021). In 2020, she was the recipient of InterMusic SF's Small Chamber Music Grant, funding the debut album of the Kasey Knudsen Sextet. In 2013, Knudsen was commissioned by Intersection For the Arts to compose and perform an evening of new work featuring her original music. In 2008, Knudsen was featured in a series presented by the De Young Museum, showcasing her composition inspired by visual artist Deborah Oropallo. In 2005, she was commissioned by the California Jazz Conservatory's Emerging Artist Series to present an evening of original music.

In addition to leading a number of her own projects, as a co-leader, she is involved in several groups including the Schimscheimer Family Trio, the Holly Martins, and the Klaxon Mutant Allstars. Knudsen collaborates frequently with many of the most unique musical voices in the Bay Area including multiple performances across the US and Europe with Tune-Yards, Fred Frith and the Gravity Band, the Charlie Hunter Quartet, Erik Jekabson, Ben Goldberg, the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, Beth Schenck, and many more.

As an educator, Knudsen specializes in the development of improvisation skills through the study of harmony, transcription, and saxophone technique with a focus on sound production, articulation, phrasing, and ear training. She currently teaches ensembles and workshops at the California Jazz Conservatory.  She has been a clinician at Berkeley High School, Piedmont High School, the Stanford Jazz Workshop, the Lafayette Jazz Workshop, the Monterey Jazz Festival, the Reno Jazz Festival, and the UC Berkeley Young Musician's Program. Knudsen was an adjunct professor of Jazz Studies at Sonoma State University for 10 years.

 

ADAM SHULMAN, piano

Adam Shulman has been a staple of the San Francisco Jazz scene since he moved to the city in 2002. Before the move, Adam was a student at UC Santa Cruz where he received a degree in classical performance. While at UCSC he studied jazz piano with Smith Dobson.

Adam can also be seen as a sideman with countless bay area musicians and vocalists such as Marcus Shelby, Anton Schwartz, Andrew Speight, Erik Jekabson, Ed Reed, Mike Olmos, Gary Brown, Patrick Wolff, John Wiitala, Vince Lateano, Faye Carol, Kellye Gray, Ian Carey, and Mike Zilber among many others. He has played as a sideman with internationally renowned artists Stefon Harris, Willie Jones III, Dayna Stephens, Miguel Zenon, Mark Murphy, Alan Harris, Luciana Souza, Paula West, Larry Coryell, Sean Jones, Grant Stewart, John Clayton, Bobby Hutcherson, Bria Skonberg and with the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

In addition to his sideman work, Adam is a composer and arranger. He has released 4 albums of original music under his name, and has also done much of the arranging work for the jazz and cabaret singer Paula West.

 

SHELDON BROWN, bass clarinet & tenor saxophone

Composer and woodwind instrumentalist Sheldon Brown has been active on the San Francisco Bay Area creative music scene and beyond for over 30 years. In addition to performing his original music with Sheldon Brown Group, Brown has performed with a diverse array of people and groups including Anthony Braxton, Ben Goldberg, Omar Sosa, Club Foot Orchestra, Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra, Clarinet Thing and Bobby Weir. His extended original composition "Blood of the Air" (funded by Chamber Music America and InterMusic SF) premiered at the 32nd Annual San Francisco Jazz Festival, and was featured at the 16th Annual Outsound Festival. Most recently Brown performed and composed music for Club Foot Orchestra’s score for the classic silent film, Pandora’s Box, at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland.

 

FRED RANDOLPH, bass

As a professional musician, composer, arranger, and educator, Fred Randolph has devoted his life to the art of music, especially jazz. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Fred began to seriously study and play jazz, first on the guitar, and later, on the saxophone and trumpet during his college years at UC Berkeley. His instrumental epiphany occurred, however, when he was working on my Master’s Degree in Composition at CSU Hayward, and he fell under the spell of the bass.

His first solo album Learning Curve was released in 2003 at Yoshi’s Jazz Club in Oakland, California. It was followed by his albums New Day (2006), Song Without Singing (2015), and Mood Walk (2020).

He is currently the leader of The Fred Randolph Quintet, which has performed at venues including California Jazz Conservatory, the Sound Room, the Empress Theater, the Impulse Room, and the Hillside Club. He continues to perform as a bassist for many of the Bay Area’s finest orchestras and musicians, including Maria Muldaur, Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, Collective West Jazz Orchestra, Charged Particles, Sandy Cressman, Mads Tolling, Vince Lateano, Fil Lorenz Big Band, Kenny Washington, Gaea Schell, Marcos Silva, Orquesta Dharma, Dmitri Metheny, Barry Finnerty, Richard Howell, Bob Kenmotsu, Calvin Keys, Paul McCandless, Terrence Brewer, Akira Tana, and the SFSU Symphony.

His compositions have been featured on the soundtracks to the films “Love Twice” and “Fourth Movement” directed by Rob Nilsson. He has served as Director of Instrumental Music at Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland for the past several years, in addition to teaching at Berkeley City College and Contra Costa College and California Jazz Conservatory. His article “Chart Notation: The Essential Toolkit” published in the July 2016 issue of Downbeat.

 

ERIC GARLAND, drums

Eric Garland has been playing professionally since 1995. Since 2004 he’s been on the faculty at Community Music Center in San Francisco, and also teaches privately in Berkeley.

He studied at San Francisco State University with percussionist David Rosenthal (SF Opera) and privately with drum teachers Pete Magadini, Scott Amendola, Dave Flores, Dave Elitc,h and Dan Weiss. He has performed and toured extensively in the US and abroad playing at many festivals including Montreal Jazz Festival, Newport Jazz Festival and NYC Summer stage, and has played with a variety of different artists including vibraphonist Roy Ayers, Bobby McFerrin, and 60’s icon Donovan.

Eric can be heard regularly in the Bay Area with the Rob Reich Quintet, Jazz Mafia, Mads Tolling, Klaxon Mutant Allstars, the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, and the Kasey Knudsen Quintet.