Circular Motion

Francesco Crosara (Milan, 1960) is a pianist/composer and music educator, he was born in Milan and now lives in Seattle (USA). His role models are Chick Corea, Bill Evans and Herbie Hancock. As far as I can tell, he released seven albums, including 1999's "Colors" with the renowned Chicago tenor saxophonist Von Freeman. His music moves between jazz improvisation, a touch of romance thanks to his classical training together with Latin influences. For this new album he selected ten compositions from the last 40 years of his career with the idea of making a connection between his earlier work with its simplicity and youthful appeal and his later oeuvre with richer harmonic structures and possibilities.
On this album, Crosara plays both acoustic piano and Yamaha MODX-8 synthesizer with this varied program of original music for three different trio line-ups, two with electric bass and one with double bass. Francesco cites the influence of Chick Corea, a mentor and family friend who once wrote to Crosara: "Francesco, your music is wonderful, always has been. Play what you love and saturate the world with it." Francesco follows the example of Corea who also used different bands in different situations, he is more interested in discovering new talents and new sounds and the different approaches to the music that each musician brings.
The four acoustic songs "Longing, Gymnopédie No. 4, Maktoub and the title track Circular Motion" showcase the rich sound of double bassist Clipper Anderson and the subtle rhythms of drummer Mark Ivester. The opening track "Preludio Flamenco" requires a more guitar-like approach, which is why Farko Dosumov plays the 5-string bass guitar here, he and drummer D'Vonne Lewis can also be heard on "Julia's Tango", "Passion" and "One day honey, One day onions". With the last trio with Osama Afifi on bass guitar and Xavier Lecouturier on drums we move more towards world music. Afifi sounds very different from Dosumov, who plays more in the style of Jaco Pastorius while Afifi is more like Stanley Clarke. Xavier, only 24, has great technique. There are three different rhythm groups and actually three different trios because Francesco himself alternates between acoustic piano and the Yamaha synthesizer, which creates a completely different sound.
Francesco dedicates this album to his mother, jazz singer, producer, journalist, author and so much more Lilian Terry (1930 - 2023), through her he came into contact with various jazz greats such as Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Abbey Lincoln and also

Von Freeman with whom he produced two recorded albums. "Vonski was another big mentor for me, the biggest advice he gave me: Only two things matter in music- timing and space". The result is an extremely successful album with beautiful compositions that are perfectly performed by excellent musicians. (Translated from Dutch)

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