Stephan Crump's Slow Water
Schedule
Wed, 22 Apr, 2026 at 08:30 pm
UTC-05:00Location
3111 N Western Ave Chicago IL 60618 | Chicago, IL
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8:30pm.Special Earth Day performance in partnership with Global Gardens Chicago [https://www.globalgardenschicago.org/]
Stephan Crump • Slow Water
Acclaimed composer and bassist Stephan Crump presents an extraordinary ensemble and body of work inspired by the movement to redefine how we live with water in an era of rapid change.
Yuhan Su • vibraphone
Fung Chern Hwei • viola
Erica Dicker • violin
Jacob Garchik • trombone
Kenny Warren • trumpet
Stephan Crump • acoustic bass
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Imagine music that is free from constraints or agendas; music that overflows with attention to its wondrous surroundings; music that is allowed to meander and take its time, trusting that, through the right collective intent, stretching broad and deep, fertile wonderlands just might appear.
Stephan Crump’s poignant and immersive Slow Water does just that. A continuous piece rendered by a stellar sextet of new music and jazz ringers, Slow Water uses science, natural philosophy, and empathy to imagine the secret life that water leads, from its creatures and chemistry to its sense of near-magical motion.
Crump’s collaborations with Mary Halvorson, Tyshawn Sorey, Ingrid Laubrock, Vijay Iyer, and Borderlands Trio long ago confirmed his place at the vanguard of modern jazz. With Slow Water Crump allowed the question of what water wants to do when not being controlled by humans to guide decisions at every stage in the creative process, leading to transformative discoveries in approach to composition and band-leading. Crump wanted both band and its pieces to flow together, to move as water would and to enable, as water also does, a larger ecosystem. For musicians and listeners alike, the experience has been revelatory, changing their relationship with performance, with themselves, and with nature itself.
“mystical” **** – allmusic
“both daring and beautiful” – PopMatters
“a creative masterwork” **** – AllAboutJazz
“haunting, plangent and memorable music” – The Wire
“deep and consequential...highly recommended” – The Tracking Angle
“As a bassist and composer, Mr. Crump avoids obvious routes but manages never to lose his way” – The New York Times
Slow Water is available on Double-LP, CD, Hi-Res Download at stephancrump.bandcamp.com and stephancrump.com
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Stephan Crump is a Grammy-nominated bassist and composer, collaborator and bandleader, soloist and educator, based in New York City since 1994. A Memphis native, Crump fell for New York’s fecund scenes during his first semester at Amherst College, when he would drive hours to play late-night, weekday gigs in the West Village. He knew this is where he’d make his life and career.
Working beyond genre, he has become a crucial component of multiple New York music communities in and beyond jazz. For two decades, Crump recorded and toured as a third of Vijay Iyer’s acclaimed trio, helping to build that band’s global reputation. Meanwhile, many of his own ensembles—Rhombal, with Tyshawn Sorey, Ellery Eskelin, and Adam O’Farrill; Secret Keeper, with Mary Halvorson; Rosetta Trio, with Jamie Fox and Liberty Ellman—prize versatility and voicings in a manner that more traditional configurations often do not. His Borderlands Trio, with pianist Kris Davis and drummer Eric McPherson, brings this same mentality to a more familiar setting. Other collaborators have included Miguel Zenón, Gordon Gano, Patti Austin, Johnny Clyde Copeland, Wadada Leo Smith, Jim Campilongo, David Gilmore, Sam Newsome, Steve Lehman, Cory Smythe, Ingrid Laubrock, Okkyung Lee, Mat Maneri, and Ches Smith.
Crump’s physical and emotional connection to the bass is abundant through the new sextet Slow Water, which explores ecology and environment through composition and group communication. He teaches On Magnetism, a course in connecting more deeply through one’s instrument, after a lifetime of doing just that, and lives still in Brooklyn with his wife and collaborator, the singer Jen Chapin, and their two sons.
stephancrump.com/ [http://stephancrump.com/]
facebook.com/profile.php?id=100032330576844 [https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100032330576844]
instagram.com/crumbletones [https://www.instagram.com/crumbletones]
stephancrump.bandcamp.com [https://stephancrump.bandcamp.com/]
Photo by: Nathan James Leatherman
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Where is it happening?
3111 N Western Ave Chicago IL 60618, 3111 N Western Ave, Chicago, IL 60618-6409, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
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