Scottish trumpeter Ian Carr (1933-2005) was already performing modern jazz in the mid-1950s in bands with his brother Mike Carr on piano. The pair formed the EmCee Five in 1960 on graduating from Newcastle University. In 1963 he moved to London and joined Don Rendell in the hugely influential Rendell-Car Quintet which also featured pianist Michael Garrick, Dave Green (bass) and Trevor Tomkins (drums). Among the five albums they recorded for EMI were Dusk Fire and Shades Of Blue, which are remembered today as some of the finest UK jazz recordings. Carr’s second group was if anything even more influential. Nucleus was one of the leading jazz-rock bands of the 1970s winning first prize at the Montreux Jazz Festival and performing at Newport Jazz Festival in 1970. Jeff Clyne, John Marshall and Karl Jenkins were among the original line-up, while Gordon Beck, Geoff Castle, Derek Wadsworth, Jim Mullen, Roy Babbington and Kenny Wheeler would also pass through the ranks. Carr had equally successful careers as a writer and an educator. He was co-editor of the Rough Guide to Jazz, biographer of Miles Davis, and an associate professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Find Out More
Jazz UK extracts from Ian Carr's classic book 'Music Outside'
Recommended Recordings
Shades Of Blue – with Don Rendell (Columbia 1964)
Nucleus – We’ll Talk About It Later (Vertigo 1979)
Old Heartland (MMC 1988)
