Jazzwise Magazine Rosetta review, February 2007
The quiet side of jazz does not always have to preclude rhythmic interest. Skilled musicians, even at very low volume, can still play grooves as well as melodies. This is what this trio led by Crump, so impressive in Vijay Iyer's quartet, does with a masterful hand, enriching some diaphanous themes with passages of inspired call and response and pert, precise, riff-like interludes that make the narrative content of this album quite outstanding. From Nat King Cole to Holland/Surman/Brahem, the drummer-less trio in jazz has had many successful exponents but this incarnation is compelling in its combination of force and fragility, delicacy and dynamics. The strings entwine to produce some beautifully grainy timbres yet it is the seamlessness of the harmonic transitions and yearning nature of the refrains that really catches the ear. Rosetta is an intensely lyrical work. Released on Crump's own Papillon label, this album may not gain the exposure it deserves but that doesn't change the fact that it's one of the most engrossing small group performances heard since Jimmy Giuffre's Freefall.