Thursdays 6:30 - 8 pm | 04/02 – 05/21 (8 weeks)

Designed for musicians new to jazz improvisation, this class focuses on foundational tools for creating clear, musical solos. Students develop melodic ideas, explore rhythmic variation, and learn to navigate common chord progressions. Basic jazz harmony is introduced as a practical framework for understanding chord structures and harmonic movement.

Listening to recordings of great improvisers is an integral part of the course, with guided discussion around phrasing, articulation, time feel, and melodic shape. In class, students engage in ear training, call-and-response exercises, and structured improvisation over simple forms to build confidence and fluency. There is ample playing time each week.

This course provides strong preparation for participation in Jazzschool ensembles.

Suggested Prerequisites
Ability to play major scales in all keys

Students are encouraged to have the iReal Pro app for play-along practice at home.

About the Instructor
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, The Oxford Companion to Jazz). His projects include the Ian Carey Quintet+1, featured on five albums including Fire in My Head (2020); Wood Metal Plastic, a chamber-influenced septet whose debut album Strange Arts was released in 2024; Takoyaki 4, an organ-and-horns quartet; and Duocracy, a duo with pianist Ben Stolorow exploring rare American standards.

Originally from Binghamton, New York, Carey studied in Northern California and New York City (including seven years at The New School) before settling in the Bay Area in 2001. He has performed widely with leading regional ensembles and visiting artists and has received commissions from Chamber Music America and Intermusic SF. In 2018, SFJAZZ named him one of “12 Bay Area Composers You Should Know,” and he was included in Ted Gioia’s How to Listen to Jazz among “The Elite 150 of Early- and Mid-Career Jazz Masters.”

An experienced educator, Carey maintains a private lesson studio and serves on the faculty of Sonoma State University as Director of Concert Jazz Ensembles and jazz trumpet instructor. He has also taught at Stanford University, California Jazz Conservatory, Santa Rosa Junior College, Oaktown Jazz Workshops, and the Stanford Jazz Workshop. His writing has appeared in DownBeat and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and his essay “How Not to Become a Bitter White Jazz Musician” was praised by trumpeter Nicholas Payton as “the most brilliant piece that I have ever read about the dynamic of a White person in Black American Music.”