Double-LP, CD, FLAC, MP3, and Sheet Music available at my Store. Also available at Bandcamp and on Apple Music.
“Bristles with the unexpected and the lively” - Downbeat ****
The debut album by this quartet, featuring veteran explorer Ellery Eskelin with brilliant young trumpeter Adam O’Farrill in the midst of a deep rhythm team chemistry drummer Tyshawn Sorey and I have formed over more than a decade of collaboration. The group convened around a body of work dedicated to my late brother, Patrick. Fan-funded through PledgeMusic.
from our album press release:
Rhombal is not about sadness. Much more, it’s a commemoration of a death well-confronted, of a spiritual evolution I witnessed in my brother during our last days together, and of how close we left each other after what had been, for many years, a very troubled relationship.
In putting a band together, I usually look first to the spirits involved rather than particular instruments, although after years of exploring with my all-string Rosetta Trio and numerous duo projects, I knew I wanted to deal with drums and breath. I also wanted the collective freedom and challenge that comes from omitting a chordal instrument, and at times to find how the band, itself, might be that instrument.
Tyshawn and I have a deep musical and personal bond that reaches into more than a decade shared onstage and on the road, mostly with Vijay Iyer’s trio and quartet. I met Adam while on faculty at the Banff creative music summer program in 2013 and immediately connected with him as a person, plus I couldn’t get enough of hearing him play his horn. Ellery I’d admired from afar for years before introducing myself with this project in mind. I thought he and Adam might make an inspired team and was drawn to the generational breadth they would bring to the group. Hearing their sounds together as they warmed up before our first rehearsal, I was knocked back by the vibration. It almost doesn’t matter what notes they play.
In the name “Rhombal” there is a bit of “rumble,” evoking a scrum or sparring tangle, but even more, the idea of developing geometries, of shape-shifting while maintaining a powerful structural integrity and functional equality.
I began writing this music in the last few months of my brother’s life, as he battled an extremely rare and aggressive sarcoma. The writing flowed through a year after his passing and was shaped by the chemistry of the band as we began to rehearse and perform. Then, this winter, we recorded the album in a two-day studio journey that was one of the most profound and moving experiences of my life, and which left me with the feeling of a new brotherhood, just formed.
Rhombal
ELLERY ESKELIN · tenor saxophone
ADAM O'FARRILL · trumpet
TYSHAWN SOREY · drums
STEPHAN CRUMP · acoustic bass
“there’s a lot of generosity in the sound of this group”
FreeJazzBlog
“irrepressible spirit”
FreeJazzBlog
“This is an impressive band, very much worth catching”
CTNow
“Crump’s compositions have a coiled energy and a blossoming logic”
CTNow
“at times discordant but blissfully moving melodies that surge with Sorey’s complex but muscular drumming”
Jazziz
“Best of 2016″
Los Angeles Times
“O’Farrill and Eskelin engage in astute exchanges teeming with inventive lyricism, investing Crump’s harmonious melodies with a resolute emotional core.”
Point of Departure
“a sound greater than the sum of its parts”
Point of Departure
“his bass, beautifully recorded here, becomes a powerful presence, a physical and spiritual force that looms over this music”
Stereophile
“open creative frameworks inspire all four players to dig deep”
Stereophile
“his compositions possess an austere, haunting resonance”
Stereophile
“The Best Jazz of 2016″
PopMatters
“there are no conventional “jazz solos” and so you find yourself listening to the groove as if it were Coltrane”
PopMatters
“each track moves forward with personality and quirk, like a real person”
PopMatters
“each song exhibits a patience with each step of its development, which gives those melodic constructs time to come to full bloom”
Bird Is the Worm
“melodies thrive within the wide open spaces”
Bird Is the Worm
“Crump’s music is original”
Downbeat
“Mr. Crump is a bassist with a broad stylistic frame, at home in both the avant-garde and a more traditional framework. With his band Rhombal, which just released an excellent self-titled album, he opts not to draw any distinctions between those poles”
The New York Times
“bristles with the unexpected and the lively”
Downbeat
“While this is clearly Crump’s album, it’s also a blend of four distinct personalities, each able to navigate rapidly mutating tunes”
Downbeat
“feels lived-in and warm”
Downbeat
“This group plays complex music freely, easily and memorably”
Downbeat
“wonderfully unclassifiable”
StepTempest
“sounds old and new at the same time”
StepTempest
“Crump’s compositions impart concise and easily expandable storylines”
AllAboutJazz
“prominent and resonating acoustic bass lines generate the perfect elixir”
AllAboutJazz
“excellent”
The New York Times
“As a bandleader, he’s clearly done it again”
NextBop
“As a composer, the Memphis native is top notch, possibly one of the best in jazz today for his consistent brilliance”
NextBop
“a shifting, beautiful quartet”
NextBop