Heart Music by George Crotty Trio
'Heart Music' by George Crotty Trio
There may be other cellists expanding the sonic geography of their instrument in the cloisters of academia and the realm of classical music. But for anyone interested in hearing what can be done with a cello at the intersection of jazz, contemporary chamber quartets and international vernacular music, especially from India and the Middle East, the trio led by Canada’s George Crotty has the goods.
Once you’ve become accustomed to the cello as a conduit for soloing and riffing, the George Crotty Trio proffers a surprisingly accessible sound in Heart Music. It’s threesome’s fifth long-player and billed as an eight-part suite. The interplay of Crotty's axe, upright bass and a small percussion battery yield results in myriad moods, at times elegiac, somber, ebullient and, with pleasing frequency, genuinely grooving. Crotty and Co. even engage in smidgens of what could be described as dance music, with what could be taken as disco beats and drum & bass peppering a couple Heart pieces. Here’s a trio producing artistry that registers as experimental at first, but upon repeated exposure, finds new angles in familiar spaces.
