Grammy-nominated, Memphis-bred Brooklynite bassist/composer Stephan Crump performs with his all-string Rosetta Trio in exploration of work from their new album, Outliers.

The trio formed in 2005 to record an album of pieces written in the aftermath of 9/11. That “engaging and sublime meeting” (Signal to Noise) of Crump on acoustic bass with guitarists Liberty Ellman and Jamie Fox, produced Rosetta, which was greeted with inclusion on multiple top ten lists and ecstatic reviews for its narrative depth and outstanding performances. “Here is a string ensemble for the new century!" raved All About Jazz NY. Their second album, Reclamation (2010), “a low-key marvel” (JazzTimes), “bareness in emotion” (NPR), was much more than a follow-up effort, though it was the earlier album that gave the trio its name and its mission: to inhabit the dynamic and rhythmic flexibility of a drumless ensemble and embrace its challenges and expanded responsibilities; to reject restrictions of genre; to explore different territories of feel, texture, color; to groove. With Thwirl (2013) “a declaration of increased proportions, a culmination of superior interplay, chemistry, delicacy and vision” (Downbeat), the group revealed a new telepathy. Rosetta Trio, whose members have for years collaborated with many of the leading lights in the New York creative music scene, has developed into a formidable unit, sensitively and powerfully rendering Crump’s often profound, sometimes playful and always honest music. Now, after fifteen years of collaboration, the trio charts new territories of shape and feel on Outliers, arriving February 19, 2019 on Papillon Sounds.

Shunning barriers of genre, Crump has performed and recorded with a diverse range of musicians, from Portishead's Dave McDonald, The Violent Femmes' Gordon Gano, to Patti Austin, Jim Campilongo, Jorma Kaukonen, Lucy Kaplansky, Big Ass Truck, Sonny Fortune, and late blues legend Johnny Clyde Copeland. Currently, he can be heard as a long-standing member of Vijay Iyer Trio and Sextet, Jen Chapin Band, Ches Smith Trio, Rez Abbasi Acoustic Quartet, Liberty Ellman Sextet, Secret Keeper (with Mary Halvorson), as well as groups with Kris Davis, Ingrid Laubrock, Cory Smythe, Eric McPherson, Mat Maneri, and Okkyung Lee.

Crump launched his solo performance career as an invited artist at the 2009 International Society of Bassists conference and has since released several recordings documenting his duo collaborations with alto saxophonist Steve Lehman, pianist James Carney, and guitarist Mary Halvorson. His Rhombal quartet, with Tyshawn Sorey, Ellery Eskelin, and Adam O’Farrill, recently released its eponymous debut.

Ellman and Fox were both fixtures on the San Francisco Bay area scene and had toured internationally before arriving in New York in the 90s. Aside from his own critically-acclaimed recording career, Ellman has been featured as guitarist and producer in Henry Threadgill’s innovative group, Zooid, and has performed with other jazz visionaries such as Steve Coleman and Greg Osby. An accomplished jazz composer in his own right, Fox brings his idiosyncratic folk, R&B and blues perspective that has contributed to the music of such legends as Joan Baez and Brother Jack McDuff.

https://www.stephancrump.com/