Well over 120 people attended Ian's funeral on the overcast afternoon of Friday 13th March. I didn't get a chance to count, but the chapel looked to me pretty close to its capacity of 150, as people took their seats to the sound of "In A Silent Way".
In addition to his daughter Selina and other members of Ian's family, there were people whose lives he had touched and changed in a variety of ways: old Army pals, several generations of musicians from Don Rendell (now 83) and Kenny Wheeler, Norma Winstone, Tim Whitehead, Mark and Mike Mondesir, to students in their early 20s. The significant number of young British musicians at the funeral was testimony to his stature and influence on the development of jazz in the UK over the last 45 years. There was Zoe Wanamaker, whose father Sam had been helped by Ian in his successful campaign to build a replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre; there were critics, writers, editors, producers and there were people who had helped care for him during the last few years and had formed bonds of friendship with this remarkable man.
Ian's biographer Alyn Shipton introduced the speakers and ran the event in a low-key and informal way. It was a secular "ceremony" which included recordings of Ian's own performances, his favourites by Miles and Louis and one live piece. Though filled with emotion, the event was more a celebration of his life than a mourning of his passing.
Using often hilarious extracts from Ian's own diaries, Gerald Laing described the impact Ian had made upon him 55 years ago, when as a 20 year old regular army officer, he met the well-read, mature and art-loving conscripted officer who had a degree in English Literature, wrote poetry and played jazz trumpet. Ian's diaries contained funny, beautifully written accounts of his meetings with the immature Gerald, usually culminating in an exasperated "I restrained myself from hitting him." Inspired by Ian's questioning attitude and fierce commitment to the arts, Gerald abandoned the military career his family were expecting of him to follow his own inclinations into drawing, painting and then sculpture. He is now an artist of considerable international stature. The piece played after he spoke, " Hot Rod" (by the Rendell - Carr Quintet) was inspired by a sports car Gerald had owned as his career took off, and which was the subject of an influential series of paintings.
Geoff Castle spoke of the years of touring with Nucleus and the way Ian had nurtured the musical and personal development of the members of the band, stimulating their reading of literature as well as their performance of music while touring Europe in often less than ideal conditions - like an unheated band van (after a year of freezing travel, they discovered that they had simply misunderstood the controls!) He also told how the band accepted a three-week tour of Germany which turned out to be organised by a cooperative of 16 year old schoolgirls. Needless to say it was the most efficiently run tour they ever did, and some of the girls went on to become successful professional promoters. The music of Nucleus was represented by "Selina" a piece dedicated to Ian's daughter.
Film-maker Mike Dibb spoke of the range of Ian's cultural interests and his fierce enthusiasm when speaking about jazz. He spoke of the 25 years it took to get "The Miles Davis Story" off the ground and of Ian's joy in New York when, during the filming, Ian was introduced to a group of SONY employees who were more interested to meet the bandleader of Nucleus than the biographer of Miles! He also described the frisson that spread across the tables at The Royal Philharmonic Society's Dorchester Awards Dinner, when a somewhat tipsy Ian berated the classical music establishment, which had generously just given its media award to the Miles Davis film, for its ignorance and condescension towards Jazz! We then heard part of Ian's haunting evocation of the North of England and his friend, the late poet Sid Chaplin. This was "Spirit of Place" from "Old Heartland" featuring Nucleus with a string orchestra.
Perhaps the most moving part was the address by three of Ian's ex-students who are now rising or established stars - Sara Dillon, Nicky Yeoh and Julian Joseph. They cited Ian not just as their teacher (and a strict one at that), but as a father-figure for whom no effort was too great when they needed help or advice, as a mentor who showed them the importance of understanding Jazz's history as well as its present, and as a dear friend.
Henry Lowther played the elegiac solo trumpet piece "For Liam", and we sat for a minute with our memories.
But this was a jazz event and the traditional exuberance of the New Orleans Jazz funeral came out in the two Louis Armstrong Hot Seven pieces played as we made our way out of the chapel: Ian's favourite "West End Blues" and then the piece with which he and his brother Mike had won a talent competition nearly 60 years ago "Hotter than That" (How he would have loved the irony of that title in a crematorium.)
We went to a nearby pub and talked and drank and laughed for several hours. It all helped to erase some of the memories of the painful and distressing state to which Alzheimer's and Dementia had reduced our old friend in his last months: it was invaluable to draw upon our collective experience of him and restore the friend who made such a large contribution to all our lives. We spoke of the difference Ian had made to what we listened to, played, read, thought and felt about music, literature and life. We discussed how what we had learned from him had changed the courses of our lives, in many cases quite profoundly and irrevocably.
I recalled WB Yeats, to whose poetry Ian had introduced me, and his line describing the legacy of his friend John Synge: "That dying chose the living world for text." I remembered also a very moving speech Julian Joseph made at a Guildhall School tribute concert for Ian in November 2007, when he was still able to appreciate it. Julian stood with a stage full of young musicians and said: "We are all Ian's children." Through our experiences of him we have indeed become, in our various ways, Ian Carr's children and part of his legacy to the world, and we acknowledged it last Friday.
George Foster
[Editor's footnote: Alyn Shipton contacted this website on 19 March regarding Ian Carr's funeral service, "I overlooked one of the most important things I had intended to say at the event, which was to thank all the carers and medical staff who had looked after Ian during his last years of illness."]