FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Glenn Siegel, 413-320-1089 [email protected]

Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares presents:

Stephan Crump’s Rhombal Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares continues Season Six with a performance by Stephan Crump’s Rhombal, featuring Stephan Crump, bass and compositions, Ellery Eskelin, tenor saxophone, Adam O’Farrill, trumpet, and Kassa Overall, drums, on Saturday, Oct. 7 at 7:30pm at the Shea Theater, 71 Avenue A, Turners Falls, MA. Single tickets ($15) are available at www.jazzshares.org and at the door. Rhombal released its eponymous debut one year ago on Papillon Sounds, recording a body of work written by Crump for his late brother, Patrick. It made numerous Best of 2016 lists, including the Los Angeles Times and PopMatters. The New York Times called it “excellent,” and Downbeat’s 4-star review said it “bristles with the unexpected and the lively.” “I began writing this music in the last few months of my brother's life, as he battled an extremely rare and aggressive sarcoma,” writes Crump. “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. 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.” Memphis-bred, Grammy-nominated bassist/composer Stephan Crump has lived in Brooklyn since 1994. An active bandleader and composer, he has released eleven critically-acclaimed albums, in addition to numerous film scoring contributions. 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 the 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.

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’s instrument thrums like it’s strung with coils of ship rope, booms like a whale’s heart, drones like a tree moaning in the wind,” writes NYC Jazz Record.

Thanks to our business sponsors: Davis Financial Group, Florence Savings Bank, UMass Fine Arts Center, Downtown Sounds, Carol Abbe Smith Delap Real Estate, River Valley Co-op, Simmer Music, Bueno y Sano, Tony Margherita Management, Haydenville Woodworking & Design, The Artisan Gallery, BarbaraWeen:Visage, Hampshire College, Waugh Agency, Cortlandt Manor Optometry, Jagfly Hosting, Kathleen Collins Wealth Management, Ostberg & Associates, Peoples Bank and PV Squared.