Circular Motion

Born in Italy and the son of the late jazz singer Lillian Terry, Francesco Crosara is a veteran pianist based in Seattle. In the past he worked with such giants as Lionel Hampton, Freddie Hubbard, Richie Cole, Roy Hargrove, and Von Freeman among others but his most significant playing has been as a leader. While his music often falls into the area of modern mainstream jazz, he also doubles on synthesizer and is open to the inspirations of fusion, funk, World Music and Western classical music.

On Circular Motion, Crosara performs ten of his originals that are drawn from the past 40 years. He plays with three different trios with either acoustic bassist Clipper Anderson or Farko Dosumov or Osama Afifi on electric bass, and Mark Ivester, D'vonne Lewis or Xavier Lecouturier on drums. The music is mostly thoughtful with close interplay by the musicians. While electric bass is utilized on six of the ten numbers and Crosara occasionally switches to synthesizer, most of the music is acoustic in its sound other than the funky blues "One Day Honey One Day Onions" and "Savara" (a swinging romp on electric piano).

Several of the songs are in 6/4 time (including the Bill Evans-flavored "Gymnopedie No. 4"), and among the highlights are the introspective "Longing," a mostly relaxed "Julia's Tango" (other than an unexpected heated section), "Circular Motion" (an inside/outside song that one could imagine Keith Jarrett enjoying playing) and the folk melody "Passion."

Despite occasional nods to his inspirations (including Chick Corea), Francesco Crosara plays this music in his own voice.