'Focus' your attention on catching Marc Cary live at Yoshi's

• June 23rd, 2010 2:29 pm PT

Marc Cary performs Thursday at Yoshi's in Oakland

Photo: jfprods

As the review below makes clear, Marc Cary’s latest album, “Focus Trio Live 2009,” is among the most inventive jazz on disc I have heard this year. I posted the item back in April and must say the passing months have only reinforced my initial take.
My months with the disc has served to heighten my interest in catching the Cary band live. Northern Californians will have that (rare) opportunity when he performs Thursday at Yoshi’s in Oakland. Here’s what I had to say about the album at the time of its release.

Album: “Focus Trio Live 2009”
Artist: Marc Cary
Label: Motema Music
Lowdown: Due out today, this disc serves as a fine introduction to the trio of Cary (piano), David Ewell (bass) and Sameer Gupta (drums). Recorded in concert in such romantic locales as Rome, St. Moritz and Glenwood Springs, Colo., (!), the album’s 11 tracks reveal Cary to be a gifted pianist and arranger capable of making fresh ideas and innovations work within the confines of piano-trio tradition. So it is that you get snippets of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in “Slow Blues for MLK” and a nearly unrecognizable but wholly satisfying take on “’Round Midnight” as an album opener. Moving between standards and originals, the group draws on its collective Native American, Indian and Chinese roots for some exotic rhythms and soulful harmonies. Impressive, invigorating jazz with a somber undertone.

That said, I wanted more information of Cary himself and found an interview with the pianist on AllAboutJazz.com. Here are some telling excerpts. Also check out the clip below.

Question: It's interesting because, personally, I see you as out in front on a lot of things, not only as a player, but in trends in the music.
Cary: I kind of pioneered a couple things, you know- if you look at dates and the timeline. I was in Roy's band (Roy Hargrove) for a long time and he has been talking about this Rh Factor concept from '91. But because he's on a major label, they assigned him this classification as jazz trumpeter.

Question: Straight-ahead?
Cary: That is just so limiting . We're not in the '40s, you know what I mean. The straight-ahead lifestyle is not now. It's great that we can do this music to the level that it's acceptable but it's nothin' like what these cats were doin'. It's different. It's got all the roots and the foundation but we could never do what they did because that time period had everything in it. It's like a capsule. There were clubs, the environment was that, the culture was feeding off of this. Now, when you say jazz, people have got to go way back and then come forward. In a way, it's like saying, "You ignore what you came up with, what your generation and your culture grew up with ... Earth, Wind and Fire, the Go-Go, the Hip-hop...forget about all that! Concentrate on doin' these standards and we're going to try to keep this thing alive using you. In a way it's kind of boring, but the industry has changed a little bit. Now, a cat like Roy is able to that record, but that's way after like, I started doin' this. I can only attribute that to the fact that I had the freedom to do it. If I was signed to a major label as a jazz pianist doing a trio and stuff... then what?