Misc. Notes
Mostly self-taught on electric bass starting at age 13. He had acoustic bass study at Amherst College with Michael Marcus (jazz study) and at UMass with Salvatore Macchia (classical study). Also classical study in Paris, France with Patrick Hardouineau. He did further jazz study in NYC with Michael Moore.
Stephan was raised in music. His mother, an amateur pianist from Paris, and his Memphis-born father, an architect and jazz drummer, provided a home that was rich in their two native cultures, French and Southern. After several years of classical piano study and two years with the alto saxophone, Stephan picked up the bass guitar at age thirteen and was soon playing in a variety of groups, performing in festivals, and touring the Southeastern U. S. By the end of high school he was leading his own jazz/rock trio, which performed and recorded his original compositions.
In 1994, Stephan 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. While at Amherst he began studying the acoustic bass, with a focus on classical training which culminated in a year of study abroad in Paris with Gary Karr protégé Patrick Hardouineau. Stephan's jazz studies at Amherst included work with jazz greats Max Roach, Frank Foster, and Ray Drummond. Upon leaving Amherst, he toured the U.S. and Canada with the Tommy Dorsey Band before moving to New York. After arriving in New York, Stephan continued his studies with Michael Moore.
Stephan has performed and recorded in the US and across the globe with a diverse list of musicians- from Warner Bros. bluesman Bill Sims, Jr. to Portishead's Dave McDonald, The Violent Femmes' Gordon Gano, Big Ass Truck, Dave Liebman, Billy Hart, Sonny Fortune, Eddie Henderson, Ernie Watts, Marvin Stamm, Frank Foster, Jack Walrath, Mark Feldman, Bobby Previte, Mino Cinelu, Pete McCann, Matt Wilson, and late blues legend Johnny Clyde Copeland. Stephan is currently a member of Gregg Bendian's Mahavishnu Project, the Vijay Iyer Quartet, the Liberty Ellman Trio, the Weimarband, and singer/songwriter Jen Chapin's band.
While maintaining a busy schedule as a sideman, including regular studio work for film, television, and radio, Stephan remains intensely involved with composing and performing his own music. His compositions can be heard in Miramax, HBO, Showtime and Bravo films, and he just finished work on the original score for the upcoming Simple Focus Films release Fresh Cut Grass.
In addition to performing regularly with his group in the New York area, Stephan recently returned to the studio, this time with a quintet.
Stephan endorses Reverend basses. His wife is Jennifer Elspeth Chapin (born March 21, 1971 on Long Island, NY [Rockville Center]). Jen is a musician, a songwriter/singer (
http://www.jenchapin.com). They work together often and Stephan has spent much of this last year co-producing an upcoming release by Jen entitled "Linger."
Recordings:
Poems and Other Things (1997); Tuckahoe (2001); Jen Chapin/Stephan Crump: Open Wide (2002)
As sideperson:
Big Ass Truck: Big Ass Truck (1994); Kevn Kinney: Down Out Law (1994)Rob Levit: Afterimage (1996), East River View (1997); Vijay Iyer: Panoptic Modes (2002), Blood Sutra (2003); Joel Harrison: Free Country (2003)
Films:
"Wishful Thinking" Miramax (1997); "Fresh Cut Grass" Simple Focus Films/Showtime (2003)
Bibliography:
JazzTimes April 2002
Jazziz February 2003
BassPlayer March 2002
BassPlayer August 2002
AllAboutJazz July 2001
Berkshire Eagle September 2002
Spouses
Birth Date8 Jun 1971 Age: 52
Birth PlaceJacksonville, Duval County, Florida
OccupationVocalist
Misc. Notes
Singer/songwriter Jen Chapin is the daughter of the late folk-rock artist Harry Chapin, who is best-known for his 1974 smash "Cats in the Cradle."
Jen Chapin's work is quite different from her father's; while he was primarily a folk-rocker, she is much more difficult to categorize. Folk-rock has influenced her, but jazz, soul, funk, pop, and blues have also had a major impact on the New Yorker (who has stated that her taste in music ranges from Joni Mitchell and Steely Dan to Cassandra Wilson, Led Zeppelin, John Lee Hooker, and A Tribe Called Quest). Some of Chapin's introspective, probing work could be described as jazzy folk-pop; some of it could be called adult alternative and some of it has strong RB leanings. However you categorize Chapin, it is obvious that she is very much her own person. But as different as Chapin's songs are from her father's, she has followed in his footsteps in at least two respects: First, she pursued a career in music and second, she shares his interest in social causes (especially combating world hunger).
Born on Long Island in 1971, Chapin grew up in the New York City suburbs. She was only ten when, on July 16, 1981, her father was killed in a car accident on the Long Island Expressway at the age of 38. In 1989, an 18-year-old Chapin left Long Island to attend Brown University in Providence, RI. While she was a student at Brown, Chapin traveled to Zimbabwe and Mexico to study international relations; then, she returned to Providence and graduated from Brown with a degree in that field. It was around that time that Chapin really became serious about pursuing a career in music and she turned down a spot in a master's program in teaching so she could move to Boston and study music at the prestigious Berklee College of Music.
Although Chapin had been singing since childhood, she felt that attending Berklee (where she studied improvisation and jazz harmony, among other things) marked the first time she seriously identified herself as a musician. Since moving back to the New York area in 1995, Chapin has done her share of music teaching; at a Brooklyn high school, she has taught a course that she developed called "The History of Black Music." That is in addition to becoming quite active on the Manhattan club scene, where she has often performed with jazz bassist Stephan Crump.
In 1997, Chapin released a self-titled EP on her own Purple Chair Music; she went on to record Live at the Bitter End (her first full-length album) for Purple Chair in 1999 and Open Wide (a duet with Crump) for her label in 2001. When Chapin isn't doing music-related things, she is heavily involved in social causes. Chapin heads the board of directors of World Hunger Year (WHY), a non-profit organization that her father co-founded in 1975.
Marr Date18 Sep 1999
Marr PlaceBrooklyn, New York, New York
Marr MemoGrace Church Brookly Heights