Ian Carr was someone I didn’t know and had never met. Yet when I stumbled across the news of his passing I felt that sudden crunch of shock and sadness that you feel when someone you actually know (as opposed to know of) has died.
The reason for such a sense of connection and corresponding loss is obvious. Ian Carr’s music had percolated its way into my life back in the early 1970s and had stayed there as a presence either in his role as composer, player, writer or broadcaster ever since.
His biography on Miles Davis was a sure-handed guide to a young kid like me who was wanting to get his head around the nebulous world which Davis had created across a stellar career.
The same was true of
Music Outside, Carr's indispensable handbook charting the dizzying cross-pollination of the personnel that teemed across the British jazz scene of the 60s and 70s.
Carr’s reassuring authority came not from his academic prowess (as good as that was) but through the quality of his own playing.
Listening to his work in Nucleus, one is struck by how generous he was. His writing created platforms for others to shine and his own solos were usually dedicated to hitting the bullseye with as little fuss as possible.
Their debut album,
Elastic Rock (1970), with its tight jazz-rock riffing remains a favourite, though the more ambiguous
Belladona (1972), uses light and space to better effect, featuring outstanding performances from pianist Dave MacRae, Allan Holdsworth and from Carr himself.
Carr’s love affair with the groove and a more demonstrative brand of jazz-rock was central to Nucleus’ pungent and tangy manifesto of sonorous themes and rhythmic interplay. Though this might be applied to many of Carr’s albums, 1974‘s
Under The Sun is amongst the best of its kind.
A great ambassador for jazz in all its forms, Carr’s mellifluous Geordie accent (rounded by his years away from the Toon) was always a welcome bonus when he appeared as a presenter on Radio 3’s Jazz File and fronting other documentaries.
Though he battled with depression and personal setbacks in his private life, in his music he was garrulous, freewheeling, thought-provoking, and always good company.
In more recent years he was honoured by the industry and the co-option of his early work with Don Rendell by Radio 1 DJ Giles Peterson as a source of “new” critical beats and grooves, showed the slow but inevitable influence of his work across different generations and genre.
The death of a musical hero and the effect that such news has upon you is always difficult to explain. However, there’s some comfort in knowing that although Ian Carr may have gone, the music he brought into the world stays with us, as vibrant, dynamic and colourful as it ever was.
Ian Carr
21 April 1933 - 25 February 2009
Recorded in the Yellow Room, Friday 27th February, 2009
1. Shrinking Moon For You
2. Mister Boring
3. Black Crow
4. Dancing In The Factory
5. The Fisherman's Daith
6. Only Rain
7. A Taste of Sarsaprilla
8. Aconite
9. Joker
10. Rocky Looks Like A Flower
