Search - Indigenous People :: Unite

Blazing new trails

Jan P. Dennis | Monument, CO USA | 06/30/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Marc Cary, a kind of jazz bad boy, has done something very interesting on Indigenous People: combined world music with funk. I don't there's another disc out there quite like Unite. Cary, whose offerings have tended to be all over the place--piano trio, quintet with two percussionists, a solo Fender Rhodes disc, achieves a distinct, idiosyncratic vibe here. I'm not sure who will go for it--it's probably to weird for the funk set yet not clearly identifiable as a world jazz disc either. What he's done, it seems to me, is combine the vibe of The Antidote, his more blatantly jazz beat release, with that of Rhodes Ahead, his solo keyboard disc.The results, at least for me, are unique and eminently listenable. Guest Marvin Sewell, one of my favorite guitarists, greatly contributes to the sensibility, as does drummer Camille Gainer, a name new to me. Yarbrough Charles Law adds some very tasty coloration on a wide variety of percussion and wind instruments. This approach works absolutely brilliantly on "Terra," an impossibly catchy tune where the world-funk synthesis works perfectly, ultimately creating almost some new exotic sub-genre of music.If everything doesn't always blow one away, there is enough true musicality, brave experimentation, and rhythmic and melodic interest to satisfy all but the most narrow-minded jazz purists."