Motema

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Rochester City Newspaper By Ron Netsky - Review
Focus is a wonderfully impressionistic CD, filled with gorgeous piano solos riding atop a variety of rhythms.

ROCHESTER CITY NEWSPAPER
AUGUST 23, 2006

Music reviews

Marc Cary
Focus
Motema

Washington-raised pianist Marc Cary has carved out a reputation as one of the top young musicians on the New York jazz scene. Over the last decade and a half he has played with Arthur Taylor, Roy Hargrove, and Betty Carter. He has also served as Abbey Lincoln's pianist and arranger. The mission of Cary's current group, the Focus Trio, is to bring together American jazz and indigenous rhythms. Given that jazz, for the last hundred years, has merged European song traditions with African and Afro-Cuban rhythms, this seems a logical idea, especially at a time when world music is gaining in popularity. The resulting album, Focus, is a wonderfully impressionistic CD, filled with gorgeous piano solos riding atop a variety of rhythms. Cary is prone to intricate right-hand runs that get nicely lost in swirls of notes. His wonderfully in-sync trio is rounded out by David Ewell on bass and Sameer Gupta on drums and tablas. The group's playing is so cohesive that the album's 10 tunes feel like a song-cycle, beginning with "Appointment in Gahna," and continuing through "Elephants Eye" to "A Long Walk Home." - Ron Netsky

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