*Photo by Peter Gannushkin
“Bynum has adapted the big band to send some messages about the collective effort, historical awareness, present focus and defiance of convention that it will take to make the world work in this contemporary moment…4 stars.” (Bill Meyer, Downbeat) “Enter The PlusTet is a powerful statement of intent from a fiercely talented crew. Building a 15 piece ensemble […]
The Taylor Ho Bynum Sextet (occasionally growing all the way to a 9-tette) has been Bynum’s primary working ensemble since 2005, and has toured throughout the USA and Europe. The group’s latest release, The Ambiguity Manifesto, will be released in the fall of 2019, following the critically acclaimed releases The Middle Picture (Firehouse 12, 2007), Asphalt […]
The Acoustic Bicycle Tour is an ongoing performance journey where I travel solely on bicycle, presenting solo concerts and playing with ensembles of area musicians. The endeavor is an act of composition, a performance art piece, a philosophical statement, a celebration of musical community, and an exercise in extreme physicality. For me, there are clear analogies […]
“Taylor Ho Bynum, guitarist Mary Halvorson, pianist Benoit Delbecq, and drummer Tomas Fujiwara – improvise and interact with relaxed alertness, finely judging time, texture, line, and ensemble density to make music comprised of separate personal voices that cohere into a lively whole. Their every gesture is defined, specific, and placed within the flow of music […]
Taylor Ho Bynum and Tomas Fujiwara have played together in dozens of groups on countless gigs since they first met as teenagers growing up around Boston. In addition to their work together in Bynum’s Trio and Sextet, The Thirteenth Assembly, and Positive Catastrophe, they have released three highly acclaimed albums as a duo: 2007’s True Events and 2010’s Stepwise, […]
“The record also makes plenty of room for each of the musicians’ individual strengths to emerge: Bynum is in especially fine form, with movement from lyrical beauty to pure abstraction and noise (just listen to his menacing growls on “Glowworm” as evidence); but Morris is also characteristically exceptional, whether offering prickly fragments or his patented […]
Masters of Ceremony (formerly Quartet Collective) unites four artists across disciplines as equal partners in a shared endeavor: Rachel Bernsen, Melanie Maar, Abraham Gomez-Delgado, and Taylor Ho Bynum. The ensemble got together to experiment with doing and undoing music and dance in performance. Performing together in various venues since 2011, the group practices spontaneous action […]
Taylor directs the jazz and creative music ensemble at Dartmouth College, as well as teaching composition and improvisation.
Taylor is a founding partner of Firehouse 12 Records, a multi-media record label supporting the creative music of established and emerging artists.
Named after two mythical tricksters, Anansi the Spider of West Africa and the Monkey King of China, SpiderMonkey Strings is an improvising chamber ensemble that released two albums: Madeleine Dreams (Firehouse 12, 2010), featuring music inspired by Madeleine is Sleeping, the award-winning novel by THB’s sister Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, and Other Stories (Three Suites) (482 Music, […]
Positive Catastrophe is the brainchild of Taylor Ho Bynum and Abraham Gomez-Delgado. After nearly a decade of friendship and collaboration, Bynum and Gomez-Delgado founded Positive Catastrophe in 2007, a “raucous 10-piece ensemble…which nails its distinctive blend of Afro-Cuban rhythm and freewheeling improvisation” (The New York Times). The group enlists a bevy of New York’s most adventurous jazz and salsa musicians, all composers and bandleaders in […]
This co-operative trio brings together three musicians who have developed strikingly individual voices on their respective instruments, both in their own music as leaders and as key collaborators with some of the most innovative artists of the past fifty years. The intimacy of the trio setting allows them to explore all aspects of their varied musical ideas, with composition and improvisation, sound and silence, propulsion and stasis, and structure and […]
“Cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum, guitarist Mary Halvorson, violist Jessica Pavone and drummer Tomas Fujiwara are among the most exciting new jazz musicians to emerge on the New York scene, and it is hard to talk about any one of these players without mentioning the others.” From Close Friends, Jazz Up-and-Comers, by Martin Johnson, The Wall Street Journal, […]
The trans-Atlantic collective ensemble with Alexander Hawkins (piano), Dominic Lash (bass), and Harris Eisenstadt (drums).
A rare assemblage of creative musicians brought together to perform Bynum’s original arrangements of the music of Prince, focusing on the Purple Maestro’s golden years between 1983-1988. Some youtube goodies here, here, and here.
From 2010 to 2018, Taylor was the executive director of Tri-Centric, a not-for-profit organization that supports the ongoing work and legacy of Anthony Braxton, while also cultivating and inspiring the next generation of creative artists to pursue their own visions with the kind of idealism and integrity Braxton has demonstrated throughout his distinguished career.
