Marc Cary
For the Love of Abbey
Motéma **** RECOMMENDED ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Abbey Lincoln who died in the summer of 2010 was at the forefront of the 1960s African-American civil rights struggle to achieve equality in the eyes of the law in the US, and a singer whose work with Max Roach (We Insist: Freedom Now Suite) and her own records including Abbey is Blue in the 1950s and much more recently Wholly Earth in the late-1990s more than stand the test of time. New York-born DC-raised pianist Marc Cary from 1994-2006 accompanied Ms Lincoln and has carefully chosen this tribute to the singer on his first solo piano recording. For the Love of Abbey reminds a distracted world of Ms Lincoln’s artistry as a composer and cultural figure and underlines what the cognoscenti have long realised that Cary is a pianist of real quality and distinction. There’s a swirling certainty to the album, a sweep of imagery, and a sense of piano history at play, not surprising as Cary followed Mal Waldron, Hank Jones, Wynton Kelly and Kenny Barron among the singer’s accompanists. Cary has recorded a few of the songs included here before, both Lincoln’s own, and Ellington’s ‘Melancholia’, a favourite of Lincoln’s. But ‘Should’ve Been’ (“It’s the sound of sorry/ Lookin’ yonder with regret” as the second verse has it), which appeared along with another great highlight here, the stabbingly effective ‘Throw It Away’ on 1994 album A Turtle’s Dream, has not to my knowledge been recorded by Cary before. For the Love of Abbey has a tenderness and power and is both a significant rekindling and reminder of the spirit of Abbey Lincoln performed by a pianist at the peak of his powers. Solo piano albums thrive on intimacy, and Cary uses this aspect of the musical situation he finds himself in to his advantage but knows, like Lincoln herself did, how to make a sense of the private moment transform itself into a shared experience.
For the Love of Abbey is released on Monday
Marc Cary above