Passerine Stephan Crump

• 1 Stuck 10:22
• 2 Glide 07:49
• 3 Weavers 05:22
• 4 Twenty-Five 11:15
• 5 Scrapes 00:43
• 6 Bryn 04:49
• 7 Fly 07:08
• Total Runtime 47:28

Info zu Passerine

Passerine began in the fall of 2024 when my older son left home for college and friends began to ask if I were experiencing empty nest syndrome, or half-empty nest syndrome, as was the case. Each time, my reply was a simple, “nah, I’m good…everybody’s good.” And that was true. My wife, the boys, and I were all doing relatively well after many difficult, often harrowing years of helping our first-born navigate deep and dangerous mental health struggles — struggles so severe that we’d already had to navigate his being away for prolonged periods. No, this was a triumph — to have all made it this far, together, and now to see him off toward this next phase. We were good. But of course beneath that truth flowed a more complex emotional reality.

Sitting early in our snug Brooklyn backyard, I reflected on our home as emptying nest while watching birds swoop and sing. Just below, squirrels scampered acrobatics along power lines, pitched roofs, and the top of our wooden fence against which burgeons a modest jungle of wildflowers, cultivated for ourselves and its countless hovering attendants. I relish this morning reminder that we are simply one part of nature. And I thought…nests! My next stop was the library, from which I returned with a stack of books about birds, with a particular focus on their various approaches to building nests. Some of these are subtractive, such as the simple scrape nest made by the killdeer on a pebbly beach. Others involve additive methods, from the piling up of branches eagles perform for their massive aeries, to the far more delicate pendulous nests woven with grasses by weaverbirds. I’ve written plenty of songs sitting, walking, even dancing with an emotion.

In this case, though, I wanted the discoveries from my research to guide decisions around the project, from concept to detail, instrumentation, composing for and guiding the band. The recent experience of my Slow Water project taught me that this route might well lead to growth, not just personally, but in my music-making. And I trusted that, without leaning into it, the emotion would find its own way through the process.

All of it is in here — the fascination with birds and their varied approaches to nest-building, along with a deep sense of unity and shared existence with all of our planet, in the bond I keep with my sons and wife (not just in the song I wrote as our twenty-fifth anniversary approached), and the sort of family forged within the band as we went about this work. And there’s the family I share with you, creative spirits and humans of good intent, those of us who care to open ourselves to one another through this particular plane of communication — of communion.cisions around the project, from concept to detail, instrumentation, composing for and guiding the band.”

"With sensitive collaborative input from the musicians enlisted, Passerine is a point of departure and an embrace of transformation for Crump. It's also detailed with rigor without abandoning the freedom of creating spontaneously. The composer's sophisticated sound and gracious storytelling are filtered into the album's sequence." (jazztrail.net)

David Léon, saxophone, alto flute
Kenny Warren, trumpet
Stephan Crump, double bass
Ches Smith, drums, percussion

Recorded June 16-17, 2025 by Aaron Nevezie at The Bunker, Brooklyn, NY
Mixed by Eli Crews at Figure 8 Recording, Brooklyn, NY
Mastered by Scott Hull at Masterdisk, Peekskill, NY
Produced by Stephan Crump

Stephan Crump
Memphis-bred, Grammy-nominated bassist/composer Stephan Crump has lived in Brooklyn since 1994. An active bandleader and composer, he has released ten critically-acclaimed albums in addition to numerous film scoring contributions. As bassist, known for transforming his instrument into a speaking entity of magnetic pull, his focus on creative instrumental music has led to collaborations with many of the leading lights of his generation.

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), his own Rosetta Trio, as well as groups with Kris Davis, Ingrid Laubrock, Cory Smythe, Eric McPherson, Mat Maneri, and Okkyung Lee.

Stephan comes from a family of architects, sculptors, painters, storytellers, musicians, civic leaders, and craftsmen. He was raised in music and the arts by his Parisian mother, an amateur pianist, and his Memphian father, an architect, painter, and jazz drummer. After six years of classical piano study and two years with the alto saxophone, he got his first bass guitar at age thirteen and spent his high school years playing in rock and funk bands around Memphis. During the summers, he worked in the studio of his uncle, Stephen, a wood sculptor.

Crump received his Bachelor of Music degree from Amherst College, where he studied under Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Lewis Spratlin and was awarded the Sundquist Prize for performance and composition. It was at Amherst that he began his acoustic bass journey, with a focus on classical training that culminated in a year of study in Paris with Gary Karr-protégé Patrick Hardouineau. His jazz studies at Amherst included work with Max Roach, Frank Foster, and Ray Drummond.

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 all-string Rosetta Trio, with Jamie Fox and Liberty Ellman, is working toward their fourth album, while and his Rhombal quartet, with Tyshawn Sorey, Ellery Eskelin, and Adam O’Farrill, recently released its eponymous debut.

Stephan is an enthusiastic endorser of Velvet strings, Aguilar bass amplifiers, AMT acoustic bass microphones, and David Gage Czech Ease travel bass.

Dieses Album enthält kein Booklet