Click on the video to play the full concert. Broadcasted in livestream on June 11th, 2021.
Originally from Milan, Italy, pianist and composer Francesco Crosara’s music melds an impressive mix of jazz improvisation, a romantic vein from his classical training, along with Latin influences. Crosara who has performed with jazz greats such as Lionel Hampton, Roy Hargrove, and Ira Sullivan, is now based in the Northwest, and has collaborated with local stalwarts like Mark Ivester, Jeff Busch, Osama Afifi, and many others.
For his June 11th trio performance with Earshot Jazz, Crosara’s ensemble included talented musicians—bassist Farko Dosumov, and drummer D’Vonne Lewis. Expect both lyrical and exuberant music.
This event was livestreamed from the Royal Room, Seattle.
Broadcasted on December 20, 2020 Click on the image to view the full video on Facebook
Morelia., Michoacán, a 20 de diciembre de 2020.– Con una serie de actividades que se podrán disfrutar desde la comodidad de los hogares, este 20 de diciembre concluirá la edición XVIII del Jazztival Michoacán, que en este 2020 se desarrolló durante los últimos 5 meses del año, ofreciendo conciertos, clases maestras, presentación de libros, talleres e intervenciones artísticas, tanto presenciales, como vía redes sociales.
El programa de cierre, que será totalmente virtual, contempla en primer término una Clase Maestra a cargo del Dr. Eduardo Núñez, Director de la Facultad de Bellas Artes de la Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, quien hablará sobre la Armonización en el piano de Jazz, a partir de la una de la tarde.
Más tarde, a las 3, toca su turno de participación al saxofonista mexicano Abraham Yacaman, quien ha sido músico integrante de grandes agrupaciones en diversos países, abarcando diferentes géneros entre los que destacan el reggae, pop, jazz, blues, folk, música electrónica, canción de autor, smooth y trova, entre otros.
Su versatilidad lo ha llevado a presentarse en distintos foros de países como Estados Unidos, Canadá, Perú, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Cuba, Francia, República Checa, Eslovaquia y, por supuesto, México.
Para las 5 de la tarde está prevista la participación del Neo Tango Trío, ensamble que reúne en su formación a los sanjuaninos Tito Oliva en piano y Nicolás Bustos en guitarra eléctrica, junto al bandoneonista bonaerense Esteban Calderón. Recientemente lanzó el single “Tangaucho” desde el que propone poner a sonar la “música actual del oeste argentino”.
La propuesta musical del terceto está basada en composiciones de Oliva y arreglos de tangos clásicos que se permiten dialogar tanto con el jazz como con el folclore.
“Tangaucho” es el primer registro formal del Neo Tango Trío que ha paseado su sonoridad por escenarios porteños y cuyanos, así como de México, Serbia e Italia.
Y para cerrar con broche de oro, a partir de las 7 de la noche se contará con la presentación del italiano Francesco Crosara, pianista, compositor y educador de jazz de Seattle que ha actuado en festivales y lugares de Estados Unidos, Japón, Canadá, México, Francia, España e Italia.
Maestro de la improvisación del jazz, el estilo de piano de Francesco mezcla una fuerte vena romántica de su formación clásica en el Conservatorio de Música de Santa Cecilia en Roma con una vivaz expresión lírica en el jazz y los idiomas latinos.
Crosara ha actuado con Lionel Hampton, Freddie Hubbard, Roy Hargrove, Richie Cole, Bobby Shew, Ira Sullivan, Don Menza, John Heard, Gabe Baltazar, Mayuto Correa, Bruce Forman, Barbara Morrison, Earl Palmer, Mark Lewis, Osama Afifi, Clipper Anderson, Mark Ivester, Jeff Busch, Milo Petersen, Steven Bentley y más.
Desde 1992, Francesco ha producido 6 álbumes de jazz internacionales que van desde el directo hasta la fusión y el latín. Los artistas invitados destacados incluyen a Von Freeman, Lilian Terry, Dave Marr, Rusty Jones, Paulinho García, Dean Taba, Noel Okimoto, Yasushi Gonjo, Larry Marshall, Miles Jackson, Eric Kurtz y más. Su álbum de 2000 “Colors” recibió 4 estrellas de la revista Downbeat.
Como dato curioso mencionaremos que la madre de Francesco, Lilian Terry, fue una de las vocalistas de jazz más importantes de Europa durante cuatro décadas.
En esta ocasión Crosara ha decidido hacer una especie de remembranza, a través de fotografías, de su primer visita a Morelia en 1983 y de su estrecha relación con el Jazztival Michoacán y con su director el maestro Juan Alzate, con quien al final del recital interpretará una pieza con la que se dará el cerrojazo al Jazztival 2020.
Respecto de los resultados obtenidos en esta ocasión por el Jazztival, Juan Alzate se dijo satisfecho, al señalar que a pesar de que fue una edición diferente, por las causas que todos conocemos, el festival continúa siendo un foro impulsor del jazz, y que gracias a que todas sus actividades se transmitieron vía internet, se alcanzó una cifra record de 1´283,556 vistas.
De igual forma agradeció el apoyo de las Secretarías de Cultura y Turismo del Estado, de la Secretaría de Cultura de Morelia, del Instituto de la Juventud Morelia, del H. Ayuntamiento de Tlalpujahua y de UNAM Centro Cultural Morelia.
Cabe recordar que todas las actividades de la última jornada del Jazztival 2020, programadas para el 20 de diciembre, podrán disfrutarse en su modalidad virtual a través de la página https://jazztivalmichoacan.org Calzada La Huerta 913. Col. Los Girasoles. Morelia, 58049. Morelia, Michoacán Tels. 4434101980, 4433692440, 6621027546 y 4434532785. www.jazztivalmichoacan.org jazztivalmichoacan.@gmail.com
See the video at 26:02: Preludio Flamenco, Francesco Crosara Quintet, with abstract art by Julia Crosara.
The Jazz: The Second Century series has always been about exploring the fundamental question: “One-hundred years into the art-form, what sonic shape does jazz take in its second century?” This question has never felt more relevant—or urgent—during these times of physical distancing, where musicians are being forced to explore new and innovative ways to develop and present their art. 2020 marks the first time the series is presented as part of the Earshot Jazz Festival.
Tonight’s Artists:
Leanna Keith: Leanna Keith is a flutist, composer, and improviser. This piece (untitled) is largely a response to performance in isolation. Keith’s practice is one of listening, which has obvious implications in a band setting, but far less obvious in practice when alone in a room.
Josh Hou: In the months since quarantine began, Hou has discovered remote recording as a powerful way to create music as well as maintain and build community. This is a video of a Chinese concerto, reharmonized and rearranged for jazz trio featuring Sara Heng, a guzheng player from Kuala Lumpu, all recorded in separate locatsions.
Melanie Sehman & Sarah Yates: Combining two strikingly different musical backgrounds, Melanie Sehman (drums, percussion) and Sarah Yates (double bass) form an improvising duo that approaches jazz as an exploration of the common ground between their diverse musical languages.
Francesco Crosara: Crosara’s personal brand of jazz has become more focused in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, it reflects the collective anxiety of the moment while providing greater introspection in the purpose of music as a powerful source of comfort and escape.
Italian pianist Francesco Crosara became a part of the Seattle music community three years ago and had been gaining more public recognition here until public performances came to a halt with the pandemic. Fortunately, we have some representative performances on CDs and some recent streaming shows to enjoy. On this week’s Jazz Northwest, we’ll hear him playing a solo rendition of the ballad “Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most.”
Also on this week’s show, trumpeter Jared Hall plays an original from his debut album and flugelhorn player Dmitri Matheny plays a medley of movie themes from his album Jazz Noir. Guitarist Richard Boukas and pianist Jovino Santos Neto team in a Brazilian duo and the Dave Robbins Sextet from Vancouver BC plays a tune from their recent CD, and there’s more…
Jazz Northwest is recorded and produced by host Jim Wilke and airs Sundays at 2 p.m. Listeners may also subscribe to the podcast at KNKX, NPR, Apple, or Google.
Jim has been a fixture on Seattle radio since 1961. He was the host of Jazz After Hours on Public Radio International from 1984-2014. Currently Jim has been producing Jazz Northwest for KNKX since 1988. This weekly program focuses on the regional jazz scene and frequently includes performances Jim records on location for Jazz Northwest.
Inspired jazz performance by pianist composer Francesco Crosara as part of the series “Live Music in the Living Room”. During this session, Francesco played original music, jazz standards, eclectic music and improvisations in a relaxed setting. The concert setting featured original artwork and art weavings by Julia Crosara, as well as a cameo appearance from Jaco the parrot.
Pianist Francesco Crosara will perform in trio format at the Spanish Ballroom at McMenamins Elks Temple on Monday, December 9th, 2019. Crosara will be joined by two of the finest musicians in the Pacific Northwest, Clipper Anderson on bass and Mark Ivester on drums. The trio will present original compositions by Crosara and play a tribute to the art of piano trio music in the tradition of Bill Evans, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, and Herbie Hancock.
Francesco Crosara (keyboard), Clipper Anderson (bass), Mark Ivester (drums) Photo credits: Julia Crosara
FRANCESCO CROSARA
Francesco Crosara is a Seattle area based Italian Jazz pianist, composer and educator, who has played at festivals and venues across the USA, Japan, Canada, Mexico, France, Spain, and Italy. He has performed with Lionel Hampton, Freddie Hubbard, Roy Hargrove, Richie Cole, Bobby Shew, Ira Sullivan, Don Menza, John Heard, Gabe Baltazar, Mayuto Correa, Bruce Forman, Barbara Morrison, Earl Palmer, Mark Lewis, and more.
Crosara produced 6 jazz albums, most notably, “Colors” (through the Chicago-based Southport Records label) featuring the late great Von Freeman, and “Emotions” (through the TCB Montreux Swiss Jazz label) featuring Lilian Terry on vocals, Von Freeman on tenor sax, and a multi-cultural group of international musicians.
“A pianist who originally hails from Italy, Crosara is well-versed in bop lore, and his delicate flow might indicate a debt to Bill Evans.” Down Beat Magazine
“Pianist Francesco Crosara’s eclectic brand of jazz was born from early classical studies in harmony and composition at the Conservatory of Rome, steeped in the tradition of Italian and European romantic musical heritage, and honed by exposure to mainstream jazz and world music. His style is heavily influenced by improvisation and bouncy lyrical expressions drawn from jazz and Latin vocabularies. Crosara’s compositions are considerate of their audience, providing a source of joy, comfort, escape, and healing. Crosara believes jazz is a collective experience and a “living language” that distills a multitude of identities, backgrounds, and personalities.” Earshot Jazz
CLIPPER ANDERSON
Known for his improvisational virtuosity, his steady presence in the pocket and his command of multiple styles, bassist Clipper Anderson is one of the most highly regarded musicians on the Northwest jazz scene today. Equally comfortable with straight-ahead, traditional, free jazz or bebop, he plays with genuine reverence for the music and an unassuming mastery that speaks for itself. Clipper has enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a composer, performer, studio musician, vocalist and educator. He plays at jazz festivals throughout the United States and Canada and has appeared at the Port Townsend Jazz Festival, the Buddy DeFranco/University of Montana Jazz Festival, the Highland Jazz Festival, the Fairbanks Summer Art Festival, the Crown of the Continent Guitar Foundation Festival and the Drayton Harbor Music Festival, the latter Three of which he currently plays annually. He has shared the bandstand with a long list of jazz luminaries including Michael Brecker, Arturo Sandoval, Dave Samuels, Peter Erskine, Bruce Forman, Tamir Hendelman, Bob Mintzer, Lew Soloff, Bucky Pizzarelli, Benny Golson, Paquito D’Rivera, Phil Woods and Buddy DeFranco. As a session musician, Clipper has appeared on numerous recordings, including five with Northwest vocal icon Greta Matassa. He has two recordings on Origin Records. Clipper’s 2012 release, “The Road Home,” marked his debut as a solo artist and composer and held the top 20-22 spots on the national jazz radio charts for several months. Clipper’s 2013 release, “Ballad Of The Sad Young Men”, featured his vocal and bass work and was well received by critics and fans alike. Clipper works out of Seattle, WA and is presently on the jazz faculty at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma.
MARK IVESTER
Mark Ivester is a versatile drummer and percussionist with extensive experience playing a variety of musical genres from rock to jazz to orchestral music. Mark has performed with numerous jazz artists of international stature including Larry Coryell, Freddie Hubbard, Diane Schuur, Mose Allison, Charlie Byrd and Eartha Kitt. He currently performs and records with the Jovino Santos Neto Quartet, Greta Matassa and Susan Pascal. Ivester has also performed with the Honolulu, Spokane and Walla Walla symphony orchestras. Ivester is a founding member of the professional percussion ensemble Happy Hammers, a group that performs a broad cross-section of percussion music of various ethnic origins including the steel drums from Trinidad, African drumming of the Ewe and Yoruba tribes, Afro-Cuban drumming, Brazilian sambas, and jazz for mallet keyboard instruments. Ivester earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Eastern Washington University, and he did undergraduate and graduate work in ethnomusicology at the University of Hawaii that included field study in gamelan music on the island of Java.
Francesco Crosara (piano & Rhodes electric piano), Cliff Colón (tenor & soprano sax), Osama Afifi (bass), Mark Ivester (drums)
Photo credits: Julia Crosara and Joe Grojean
Tuesday, October 8, 2019 The Royal Room 5000 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, Washington 98118
FrancescoJAZZ Quartet will perform all original music composed and arranged by Francesco Crosara, which reflects the improvisational talents of four of the finest musicians in the Pacific Northwest.
Crosara is a Seattle area based Italian Jazz pianist, composer and educator, who has played at festivals and venues across the USA, Japan, Canada, Mexico, France, Spain, and Italy. He has performed with Lionel Hampton, Freddie Hubbard, Roy Hargrove, Richie Cole, Bobby Shew, Ira Sullivan, Don Menza, John Heard, Gabe Baltazar, Mayuto Correa, Bruce Forman, Barbara Morrison, Earl Palmer, Mark Lewis, and more.
“A pianist who originally hails from Italy, Crosara is well-versed in bop lore, and his delicate flow might indicate a debt to Bill Evans.” Down Beat Magazine
Velocity is a high energy instrumental fusion jazz band performing original compositions and arrangements. The music is adventurous and always grooving. Velocity draws from a variety of musical styles with the core being funk, latin, and jazz. They combine hard hitting grooves and hook melodies with open improvisation.
Velocity: Peter Adams / Keyboard Cliff Colón / Saxophone Brian Smith / Drums Rob Hutchinson / Bass
Francesco Crosara (piano), Osama Afifi (bass), Steven Bentley (drums) Photo credits: Julia Crosara
Thursday, August 29, 2019 Tula’s Restaurant & Jazz Club 2214 2nd Avenue, Seattle, WA, 98121
“A pianist who originally hails
from Italy, Crosara is well-versed in bop lore, and his delicate flow might
indicate a debt to Bill Evans” Down Beat Magazine
Jazz pianist and composer Francesco
Crosara will appear at Tula’s Jazz Club in Seattle on August 29th
to present the music of FrancescoJAZZ. He will be joined by bassist
Osama Afifi and drummer Steven Bentley.
FrancescoJAZZ is the brand name of Francesco Crosara’s musical
concepts. It was featured in the
series Jazz: The Second Century,
sponsored by Earshot Jazz in July 2019. The vision of FrancescoJAZZ is to provide a source of joy,
comfort, escape and healing through original jazz compositions, improvisation,
and jazz standards revisited. The mission of FrancescoJAZZ is to guide the
listeners into a musical journey that provokes a variety of emotions, and
ultimately, has a positive impact on their lives. Crosara’s original compositions are inspired
by a blend of Jazz, Latin, World and Classical music, plus new arrangements of
select jazz standards revisited.
Born in Milan, Italy, and residing in the Pacific Northwest
since 2017, Francesco Crosara is a Jazz pianist, composer and educator who has
played at festivals and venues across the USA, Japan, Canada, Mexico, France,
Spain, and Italy. He has performed with Lionel Hampton, Freddie Hubbard, Roy Hargrove,
Richie Cole, Bobby Shew, Ira Sullivan, Don Menza, John Heard, Gabe Baltazar,
Mayuto Correa, Bruce Forman, Barbara Morrison, Earl Palmer, Mark Lewis, and
more.
Crosara has produced 6 jazz albums recorded internationally over
the course of over two decades, featuring guest artists such as Von Freeman and
Lilian Terry. His album “Colors” received 4 stars from Downbeat
magazine.
Francesco’s mother, Lilian Terry, was one of Europe’s foremost
jazz vocalists across four decades. Also
a TV/radio personality, and educator in Italy, she recorded with Dizzy
Gillespie, and with Tommy Flanagan, and co-founded the Dizzy Gillespie Popular
School of Music in Bassano, Italy.
Lilian’s memoirs, “Dizzy, Duke, Brother Ray, and Friends”,
(2017-University of Illinois Press) received a highly positive review from
Downbeat magazine and others.
A master of jazz improvisation, Francesco’s piano style mixes a
strong romantic vein from his classical training at the Music Conservatory of
Santa Cecilia in Rome with bouncy lyrical expression in the jazz and Latin
idioms. He feels equally at ease as a
solo pianist and sharing the stage with fellow musicians on both acoustic and
electric keyboards. His favorite format
is the jazz piano trio for the intimacy that it creates, and the subtle
interplay with bass and drums.
Osama Afifi has been a professional Bassist since the early 1980’s. He has recorded and performed live with many artists including John Densmore, Kurt Elling,The Cadillacs, Eric Reed,The 5th Dimension, Yanni, Jeff Lorber, Vanessa Paradis, Mindi Abair, Jeff Kashiwa, Billy Preston, Nenna Freelon, The B Sharp Jazz Quartet and has even appeared on VH1’s show “Storytellers” with The Doors.
Since moving to the Pacific Northwest from Los Angeles he has
worked with LaVon Hardison, The Tacoma Symphony, Darelle Holden, Jacqueline
Tabor, Judy Collins, Kareem Kandi, Darren Motamedy, David Keys, Hook Me Up,
Gail Pettis, Michael Powers, Wally and the Beaves, Michael Benson and many
others. His education includes studies at the Dick Grove School of Music. He
also studied with Jeff Berlin and Gary Willis.
Steven Bentley has been
on the music scene in the Pacific Nortwest for nearly thirty years. A true
professional drummer/composer, he has worked steadily in many different styles,
from club dates to major shows and countless private functions. He has the reputation for always providing
the right sound for a given situation, by listening and blending with a solid
groove.
Over the years, Steven has performed
nationally and internationally, traveling to Cuba and as far away as Japan. He
has been involved with countless recordings and performances with artists such
as Jessica Williams, Larry Coryell, Charmaine Neville, Pete Christleib, Bill
Ramsey, Pablo Menendez, Rob Scheps, Essiet Essiet, Norbert Stachel, John
Stowell, Jeff Johnson, Bert Wilson, Greta Matassa, Jay Thomas, Tracy Knoop,
Gail Pettis, Kareem Kandi, Joe Baque, Dennis Hastings, and Oberador.
