Hamid Motebassem, George Crotty Trio - Nishabourak (2025)

Internationally acclaimed Iranian musician, Maestro Hamid Motebassem (based in The Netherlands), performed with the George Crotty Trio on May 30 at the Small World Centre as part of the Experimental Link Series in Toronto. This album display Montebassem’s talent as a composer of Persian classical music and as a stunning improviser on tar and setar.

Hamid Motebassem’s Persian classical composition served as the basis for a jazz-forward musical exploration at the Experimental Link show with George Crotty on cello, and award-winners Jonathan Chapman on bass and Dhaivat Jani on percussion. The Toronto-based trio led by Canadian cellist, composer and improviser, George Crotty, is known for cross-cultural interplay drawing on modal jazz, Indian raga and Arabic maqam.

Experimental Link Series aims to contemplate the Persian-Canadian experience by reinvigorating, re-exploring and re-imagining Persian traditional music within contemporary and cosmopolitan Toronto by inviting different musicians from the diaspora to collaborate.

Tracklist:
1-1 Hamid Motebassem;George Crotty Trio - Seedlight [4:01]
1-2 Hamid Motebassem;George Crotty Trio - Lily [8:52]
1-3 Hamid Motebassem;George Crotty Trio - Fleur-De-Lis [5:21]
1-4 Hamid Motebassem;George Crotty Trio - Zanbagh [7:59]
1-5 Hamid Motebassem;George Crotty Trio - Stargazer [8:23]
1-6 Hamid Motebassem;George Crotty Trio - Lily of the Valley [3:57]