CURATION
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from this page:
by Augmented Matrix
Network Node
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Name:
Marc Cary
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City/Place:
New York City
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Country:
United States
Current News
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What's Up?
“The main thing is the intention behind what you say musically; [that’s] the beauty. If you’re thinking something and you hit that note, the resonance of what you’re thinking actually goes through that note. It’s like a telephone frequency carrying your voice--literally. That’s the power.”
– Marc Cary
Life & Work
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Bio:
In a jazz world brimming with brilliant and adventurous pianists, Marc Cary stands apart by way of pedigree and design as one of New York’s best jazz pianists. None of his prestigious peer group ever set the groove behind the drums in Washington DC go-go bands nor are any others graduates of both Betty Carter and Abbey Lincoln's daunting bandstand academies. Cary hails from a musically literate family--his mother is a cellist; his great grandmother was an ivory-tickler in silent movie houses back in that day who also rocked barrelhouse and stride duets with Eubie Blake. Ellington trumpeter Cootie Williams was a cousin of Cary's grandfather.
While New York City is Cary's birthplace he was raised between Providence RI and the nation's capital. The player-composer and improviser is a graduate of DC's world-renowned Duke Ellington School For The Arts, also the professional spawning ground for Dave Chappelle, Wallace Roney, Denyce Graves and Meshell Ndegeocello whom Cary jammed with in the school's orchestra.
Cary's Ellington education prepared him to take on the daunting Big Apple at the ripe age of 21. Besides Carter and Lincoln, the next decade of his life found him sharing stages and cultivating craft with Dizzy Gillespie, Arthur Taylor, Carlos Garnett, Jackie McLean, Wynton Marsalis and one more goddess-figure among jazz vocalists, Carmen McRae. His comfort with women bandleaders also made him a favorite accompanist among other modern chanteuses, notably Ndegeocello, Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill and Ani Di Franco.
The pianist's debut recording as a leader was released in 1995. Since then Cary's released a baker's dozen albums of music under his direction--three of those within the past two years for Motéma. Devoted fans know Cary's ensemble profile has three distinct and mesmerizing faces, revered among critics alike with this year’s DownBeat Critics Poll ‘Rising Star – Keyboardist ’ honor: his Focus Trio (well-documented live on his 2013 Motéma side Four Directions); and his pan-ethnic collective Indigenous Peoples, which merges poetic rhyme flow, soulful chanting and a sense of groove at home in the stellar realms of'interplanetary funkmanship.' (Cary's homegrown connection to his Native American heritage, instilled by his Wampanoag mom, is also a percussive factor. In the group's recent Cosmic Indigenous incarnation the deep web of continental African ties is woven tighter by the electric presence of Malian vocalist Awa Sangho).
Then there is Cary's Rhodes Ahead series--which his current Motéma recording indexes as Volume 2--the first of which on Jazzateria earned him the debut annual Billboard/BET ''Best New Jazz Artist'' award in 2000. What both volumes put on exhibit front and center is Cary's spectacular ability as a keyboardist and improviser to interweave electronic textures into a fast-moving improvisational context, sacrificing none of his musical complexity in the bargain.
Cary was no stranger to electronic tinkering in his youth. A neighbor down the road owned a repair shop. Through time spent there soldering deconstructing gadgets Cary became what he describes as a 'self-taught electrician.' This early hands-on training made him proficient at re-wiring and re-programming some of his own sound gear later on. About electronic sound in general he has this to say: ''From the first time (and last) I stuck my finger in the wall socket, I have had a thirst for understanding electricity. Using analogue synthesizers and effects pedals on the Fender Rhodes, I learned how to manipulate electricity and create musical sounds. I became fascinated with how to build, transform and manipulate synthesizers and other electronic gear. From that fascination, I began to build and transform these instruments into more useful tools for me. I learned how to create everything from microphones to midi controllers, and manipulate household electronics to become musical tools. All of this fascination has worked its way deep into my musical sound, even my acoustic works.''
Cary remains one of the progenitors of contemporary jazz, evident in his influence on peers. Live gigs with vibraphonist Stefon Harris and bandmate Casey Benjamin began the genesis of Robert Glasper’s recording Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," and Cary's record "Taiwa" from Focus in 2006 evolved into "For You" on Glasper's Double Booked and Harris' Urbanus. Cary collaborator Roy Hargrove exalted him with "Caryisms" on 1992's The Vibe, an album whose title track is one of two Cary originals including "Running Out of Time"--now part of the lexicon of live repertoire among jazz stalwarts Hargrove, Dr. Lonnie Smith and Igmar Thomas' Revive Big Band.
As New York Times jazz critic Nate Chinen observed recently, “There isn’t much in the modern-jazz-musician tool kit that Marc Cary hasn’t mastered, but he has a particular subspecialty in the area of groove…with a range of rhythmic strategies, from a deep-house pulse to a swinging churn.” Mr. Cary richly embodies the spirit of diverse streams that feed into the ample body of what we consider jazz history today. Funk was a term originally applied to the combustive post bop of Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Jackie McLean and Lee Morgan. Electronic jazz evolved from Jimmy Smith's organ grind and Sun Ra's moody electric keys in the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s to Tony Williams' prescient Lifetime prefiguring of Bitches Brew big name fusion spawn--Weather Report, Headhunters, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return To Forever, et al.--to Lonnie Liston Smith's tenure with Pharaoh Sander and Alice Coltrane's Vedic organ, to Doug Carn's sublime recasting of Coltrane and Blue Note classics with wife Jean; Norman Connors' bold casting of Pharaoh, Phyllis Hyman, Gary Bartz and McCoy Tyner on late '70s Soul singles.
Now we have the current day collaborations between hallucinogenic hip hop producer Flying Lotus with Herbie Hancock and Lotus' uncle Ravi Coltrane. That high-voltage jazz tradition is as core to the contemporary jazz esthetic as big-band swing and bop and its varied dialects. That tradition's vernacular is explosively and expobedient-ly deployed in Cary's Rhodes Ahead series. Volume 1 saw keyboardist Cary receive kudos from the jazz press for artfully recombinating fleet jazz pianistics and propulsive/convulsive rhythms from the realms of drum and bass, Indian ragas and Malian griot music.
To the electronic jazz tradition Cary noticeably brings his own lyricism, warmth and warp-speed chops. The familial use of longtime musical comrade Sameer Gupta's tabla, Terreon Gully’s drums and bassist Tarus Mateen's bedrock low-end support system insures the indelible and indispensable presence of what Dr. Funkenstein once identified as ''the preservation of the motion of hip.'' The tradition of a supple and virile Black futurism is abundantly evident.
He remains one of New York’s best jazz pianists, and as a leading improviser, now heads up the jazz improvisation classes at Manhattan School of Music and The Juilliard School.
Contact Information
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Management/Booking:
Booking and Press:
Tinku Bhattacharyya
+1 646 578 5770
[email protected]
Clips (more may be added)
The Integrated Global Creative Economy, uncoiling from this sprawling Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix.
The mathematics of the small world phenomenon transforming the creative universe into a creative village wherein all are connected by short pathways to all.
In a small world great things are possible.
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
Tap the grey crosses next to the categories on somebody's Matrix Page to recommend that person for that category.
(These crosses are only visible when you are logged in)
The crosses will turn green.
That person/category will appear in your My Curation & Recommendations.
You will appear in that person's Incoming Curation and Recommendations.
Both you and the person you are recommending will tend to some small number of steps from everybody inside the Matrix.
Salvador is our base. If you plan to visit Bahia, there are some things you should probably know and you should first visit:
www.salvadorbahiabrazil.com
Conceived under a Spiritus Mundi ranging from the quilombos and senzalas of Cachoeira and Santo Amaro to Havana and the provinces of Cuba to the wards of New Orleans to the South Side of Chicago to the sidewalks of Harlem to the townships of South Africa to the villages of Ireland to the Roma camps of France and Belgium to the Vienna of Beethoven to the shtetls of Eastern Europe...*
Sodré
*...in conversation with Raymundo Sodré, who summed up the irony in this sequence by opining for the ages: "Where there's misery, there's music!" Hence A Massa, anthem for the trod-upon folk of Brazil, which blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south until Sodré was silenced, threatened with death and forced into exile...
And hence a platform whereupon all creators tend to accessible proximity to all other creators, irrespective of degree of fame, location, or the censor.
Matrix Ground Zero is the Recôncavo, bewitching and bewitched, contouring the resplendent Bay of All Saints (end of clip below, before credits), absolute center of terrestrial gravity for the disembarkation of enslaved human beings (and for the sublimity these people created), the bay presided over by Brazil's ineffable Black Rome (seat of the Integrated Global Creative Economy* and where Bule Bule is seated below, around the corner from where we built this matrix as an extension of our record shop).
Assis Valente's (of Santo Amaro, Bahia) "Brasil Pandeiro" filmed by Betão Aguiar
Betão Aguiar
("Black Rome" is an appellation per Caetano, via Mãe Aninha of Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá.)
*Darius Mans holds a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT, and lives between Washington D.C. and Salvador da Bahia.
Between 2000 and 2004 he served as the World Bank’s Country Director for Mozambique and Angola. In that capacity, Darius led a team which generated $150 million in annual lending to Mozambique, including support for public private partnerships in infrastructure which catalyzed over $1 billion in private investment.
Darius was an economist with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, where he worked closely with the U.S. Treasury and the IMF to establish a framework to avoid debt repudiation and to restructure private commercial debt in Brazil and Chile.
He taught Economics at the University of Maryland and was a consultant to KPMG on infrastructure projects in Latin America.
Replete with Brazilian greatness, but we listened to Miles Davis and Jimmy Cliff in there too; visitors are David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR/WXPN
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
Ex Terra Brasilis
Wolfram MathWorld
UNIVERSAL
Alicia Svigals
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Luciano Calazans
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Gustavo Caribé
J Velloso
Lázaro Ramos
Fernando Guerreiro
Maria Marighella
Russell Okung
Bule Bule
Caetano Veloso
Sparrow/Pardal Roberts
RÁDIO MATRIX