Ian Carr [Archive] - Vancouver Jazz Forum

Nou Dadoun

Feb 24, 2010, 03:32 PM

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/feb/28/obituary-ian-carr-jazz

Had a report of the Memorial Concert for Ian Carr (one year on) from Terry Sullivan of the Miles List reprinted with his permission (although he warned me that "it’s just my subjective, fairly spontaneous response to the concert in the spirit of Miles L. If I’d been contemplating “publication” I might have reflected a little more." With apologies to him, here it is:

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Ian Carr’s memorial concert took place last night at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. It wasn’t a full house but it’s a big concert hall and there was a very large crowd for the three hours or so of music. The musicians waived their fees and proceeds will go to Alzheimer’s research.

All the performers had either played with Ian or been his students and it was clear that all felt a great warmth towards him. The concert was introduced by Julian Joseph, who seemed set at one time to be a really prominent jazz pianist and/or media person but who’s fallen below my radar of late. He had been a student of Ian’s and proved to be an excellent mimic, nicely capturing Ian’s earnest, slightly self important enthusiasm for his own music and that of “Miles Davis and Keith Jarrett”.

The music began with a couple of pieces by pianist Nikki Yeoh, another student of Ian’s. I hadn’t seen her before but she’s an immense talent, brimming with confidence, imagination and technique. Michael Garrick, pianist in the Rendell-Carr Quintet, then led that original quintet, with Henry Lowther replacing Ian. Garrick is a major figure in British jazz from the 60s onwards, if little appreciated outside the UK. His contribution as composer, as well as pianist, was a key factor in Rendell-Carr’s success. The addition of Art Themen on tenor and Norma Winstone, voice, to the QEH line up reconstituted Garrick’s celebrated sextet of the 1970s. Garrick observed that Ian would often dep for Henry Lowther when the latter went off on tour with Long John Baldry – though Lowther was quick to point out that he actually worked with John Mayall, a distinction of little apparent interest to Garrick.

Along with the still dependable Dave Green and Trevor Tromkins – bass and drums respectively, Norma Winstone and Garrick, himself, were the most impressive: though Art Themen’s tenor confirmed that only his day job as a surgeon prevented his gaining a real international status. Don Rendell is well into his 80s and his playing was a little frail, but an even older former bandmate was present, albeit in a wheelchair in the front stalls. The 94 year old bassist Coleridge Goode, who had recorded with Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli in the 1940s, played with Ian in Garrick’s sextet in the 60s.

An interesting snippet from Garrick was that when he replaced Colin Purbrook as pianist in the Rendell – Carr Quintet in about 1964, Ian had wanted John McLaughlin’s guitar instead of the piano. I wonder if this is a little early and Garrick is conflating later events but it suggests that the initiative behind Nucleus may lie further back than it seems on the surface.

A performance of Ian’s “Northumbrian Sketches”, conducted by Mike Gibbs, followed the interval. This piece, with its use of folk themes from Ian’s native North East of England, was described as illustrating his desire to further develop a distinctly English approach to jazz – an attitude he shared with, and perhaps originally acquired from Michael Garrick. It featured the wonderful Guy Barker on trumpet, Tim Whitehead on bass clarinet and Rob Statham on bass guitar accompanied by 20 strings, mostly students from the Royal College of Music. The sound was excellent, making the most of the richly textured writing and giving tremendous bite to the percussive effects the students were clearly relishing. For me this was the most accomplished and rewarding part of the concert.

The final hour was devoted to the later Nucleus led by Geoff Castle. The volume was immediately higher, unnecessarily so in my view. Nic France’s loud, rigid, detailed drumming dominated much of the set and imposed constraints on the music that forced it into specific shapes. It was not all bad – Chris Batchelor on trumpet played well and Tim Whitehead did enthusiastic Monk dances while guitarist Mark Wood took on Chris Spedding’s role in providing a fluid, nicely textured rhythmic counterpoint to the horns. Unfortunately, he then let rip with a solo that encapsulated all of the worst characteristics of jazz rock fusion guitar: fast, distorted, very dense lines with a calculated intensity of expression that smothered any emotional content there might have been. Ray Russell came on shortly after and showed how it should be done. The highly prescribed, riff based structures in the music prevented him playing with the unanchored, floating free abandon I remember from 1969 but he played clean lines with an urgency tempered with a blues feeling completely lacking in Wood.

It was only at the end, when John Marshall, drummer with the first incarnation of Nucleus, took over that the music was able to breathe. His flexible, jazz based drumming may not be ideal for this particular style of jazz rock but the final numbers had subtle, barely stated time and sensitive group improvisation that was inconceivable amid the earlier grandstanding.

A curate’s egg, all told but a memorable and rather moving concert.

Terry

LAZZ

Feb 25, 2010, 09:37 AM

Nice, Nou.
Thanks.

There was a tenth-birthday bash for UK's JazzWise mag held at the Pizza Express a year or so before Ian took the coda which featured a reformed Nucleus - Tim Whitehead and Chris Batchelor up front just as they were at the show Terry reported on.

Here, they play Midnight Oil:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM-qDzKfqkA

Don't know the guys in the rhythm section but it's none of the guys mentioned in the QEH review except for the keyboard player looking suspiciously like Geoff Castle - hard to tell for sure in that light.

Both Geoff and Tim (bass clarinet at QEH ? that's a big surprise - never knew he owned one), of course, worked with Ian in Nucleus, and Chris, like so many others, was deeply influenced by his approach.

When Terry refers to Ian's "native North East of England", I imagine that must vaguely include Dumfries, Scotland, where the Carrs were from. Younger brother Mike, by the way, is/was a stonking B3 player.

I guess both Mike Garrick and Don Rendell are high on the reaper's next wish-list. Don is knocking on already, Mike has had some heart problems recently and when I spoke with him after Jeff Clyne's passing he seemed to be losing some of his characteristic contagious good cheer.

There is an entire generation of quietly profound influences fading away in the UK just as much as this side of the pond.

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