On the first and third Mondays of October and November\, musician and educator Taylor Ho Bynum will lead open sessions dedicated to introducing listeners to jaz z and other forms of improvised and creative music. The first hour will co nsist of listening to classic albums in their entirety\, with introductory comments and post-listening discussion around the history and aesthetics of the recordings. The second hour will consist of musical and verbal dial ogues prompted by audience questions\, with THB performing solo and occasi onally with invited guests.
\nAttend in person in Claremont\, or joi n us online via zoom (advanced registration required).
\nThe series kicks off on October 2 with “And His Mother Called Him Bill”\, Duke Elling ton’s tribute to his compositional partner Billy Strayhorn\, and will conc lude on November 20 with a live performance of Bynum’s collaborative duo w ith acclaimed drummer/composer Tomas Fujiwara.
\nRegistration for th e first three sessions is sliding scale donation suggested at $10-50\, wit h all proceeds going to support WCCMA\, and sliding scale tickets for the November 20th concert.
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\nTHB Bio
\nTaylor Ho Bynum is a musician\, teacher\, and writer\, with a background including work in composition\, performance\, interdisciplinary collaboration\, production\, organizing\, and advocacy. His expressionist ic playing on cornet and other brass instruments\, his expansive vision as composer\, and his idiosyncratic improvisational approach have been docum ented on over twenty recordings as a bandleader and over a hundred as a si deperson. His past endeavors include his Acoustic Bicycle Tours (where he traveled to concerts solely by bike across thousands of miles) and his ste wardship of Anthony Braxton’s Tri-Centric Foundation (which he served as e xecutive director from 2010-2018\, producing and performing on many major Braxton projects\, including two operas and multiple festivals). Bynum has worked with other legendary figures such as Bill Dixon and Cecil Taylor a nd currently enjoys playing with friends in collective ensembles like his duo with Tomas Fujiwara\, Illegal Crowns (with Fujiwara\, Benoit Delbecq\, and Mary Halvorson)\, and Geometry (with Kyoko Kitamura\, Tomeka Reid\, a nd Joe Morris)\, and as a sideperson in groups led by Fujiwara\, Reid\, Ji m Hobbs\, Bill Lowe\, Bill Cole\, and William Parker\, among others. His w riting has been published in The New Yorker\, The Baffler\, Point of Depar ture and Sound American\, and he has been the director of the Coast Jazz O rchestra at Dartmouth College since 2017.
\nTHB/TF Duo
\nOver the past thirty years\, over twenty-five albums and hundreds of gigs in do zens of different bands\, drummer Tomas Fujiwara and cornettist Taylor Ho Bynum have developed one of the deeper levels of creative communication in the contemporary music scene – in groups under Fujiwara’s leadership like Triple Double and Shizuko\, ensembles led by Bynum including his Sextet\, 9-tette\, and PlusTet big band\, and collective projects like Illegal Cro wns (with Mary Halvorson and Benoit Delbecq) and the Thirteenth Assembly ( with Halvorson and Jessica Pavone). Throughout this history\, they’ve main tained their duo\, which has released four albums: “True Events” (2007)\, “Stepwise” (2010)\, “Through Foundation” (2014)\, and “Notice” (2022).
\nDescribed as “a ubiquitous presence in the New York scene…an artist w hose urbane writing is equal to his impressively nuanced drumming\,” (Poin t of Departure) Brooklyn-based Tomas Fujiwara is an active player in some of the most exciting music of the current generation. He leads the bands T riple Double\, 7 Poets Trio\, and Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up\; is a memb er of the collective trio Thumbscrew (with Mary Halvorson and Michael Form anek)\; has a collaborative duo with Taylor Ho Bynum\; and engages in a di versity of creative work with Anthony Braxton\, John Zorn\, Mary Halvorson \, Tomeka Reid\, Matana Roberts\, Taylor Ho Bynum\, Nicole Mitchell\, Ben Goldberg\, Amir ElSaffar\, Benoit Delbecq\, and many others. In 2021\, he won the Downbeat Critics Poll for Rising Star Drummer\, and premiered two suites of new music as part of his Roulette Residency: “You Don’t Have to Try” (with Meshell Ndegeocello) and “Shizuko.” His most recent work is “Dr eam Up\,” a suite for percussion quartet\, commissioned by NYSCA and Roule tte Intermedium. “Drummer Tomas Fujiwara works with rhythm as a pliable su bstance\, solid but ever shifting. His style is forward-driving but rarely blunt or aggressive\, and never random. He has a way of spreading out the center of a pulse while setting up a rigorous scaffolding of restraint…A conception of the drum set as a full-canvas instrument\, almost orchestral in its scope.” (New York Times)
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