Crisol

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Crisol is the name of a group that the trumpeter Roy Hargrove put together around 1997. The Spanish word means melting pot, and that suits the music: jazz with Afro-Cuban rhythms. Hargrove brought in top jazz players and Cuban percussionists. The line-up on the album Grande-Terre, recorded in April 1998, consisted of Hargrove himself, the saxophonists Sherman Irby and Jacques Schwarz-Bart, the trombonist Frank Lacy, the guitarist Ed Cherry, the pianists Larry Willis and Gabriel Hernández, the bassist Gerald Cannon, the drummers Willie Jones and Julio Barreto and the percussionists Changuito and Miguel Angá Díaz.

Music and breakthrough

An earlier recording by the group, Habana, was made on 5 and 6 January 1997. Grande-Terre was left on the shelf for a long time and was not released until 18 October 2024, on Verve, without edits or overdubs. The song Kamala's Dance is named after Hargrove's daughter, born in 1997. In Priorities Julio Barreto sings an introductory greeting in the Abakuá language, which belongs to an initiation.

Influence

Reviewers praised the intricate arrangements, the powerful horn sound and Hargrove's driving playing. According to one critic, the Afro-Cuban rhythms sounded more authentic than on old Blue Note records. Crisol thus reveals a side of Hargrove that is little known outside the jazz world.

Listening