Long Bio

Taylor Ho Bynum is a performer on cornet and various brass instruments, as well as a composer, bandleader, and interdisciplinary collaborator with artists in dance, film, and theater. Bynum presently leads his Trio, his Sextet, the eight-piece ensemble SpiderMonkey Strings, and co-leads the 10-piece ensemble Positive Catastrophe, in addition to a variety of collaborative projects. He has also developed a body of solo music for cornet and duo work with dancer/choreographer Rachel Bernsen.

“Cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum is at the forefront of a younger generation of creative musicians in New York,” writes AllAboutJazz.com's John Sharpe. “He combines thrilling improvisation with stealthy composition, unconfined by genre.” Other critics call him “one of the most exciting figures in jazz's new power generation” (Steve Dollar, Time Out Chicago), and “an agile and creative improviser who sounds like no one but himself” (Chris Kelsey, JazzTimes). Jazzwise reviewer Kevin Le Gendre adds, “Bynum is thinking outside of the jazz box without getting trapped inside another in the process.”

Bynum's 2005 CD with SpiderMonkey Strings, Other Stories (Three Suites), has been described as “the best album of the year” (All About Jazz) and “subtle magic...so much beauty in one hour, it's exceptional” (De Morgen, Belgium). Two CDs as a leader were released in the spring of 2007: True Events (duo with Tomas Fujiwara; the New York Times called it “a scintillating album...crackling with improvisational energy but guided by compositional prescription”), and The Middle Picture (with his Sextet and Trio; which received “four stars” from Downbeat Magazine and was described as “the shape of jazz to come” by The Wire).

Bynum’s next album with his Sextet, Asphalt Flowers Forking Paths, was released on hatOLOGY records in the fall of ‘08; it was described as the “best new release of 2008” by All About Jazz New York and received “five stars” from France's Jazzman Magazine. Ben Ratliff of the New York Times writes “the three-part piece at the center of Taylor Ho Bynum’s latest album is like an essay on what improvising bands can do.” Also released that year was The Double Trio (Engine), a collaboration with trumpeter Stephen Haynes that Avant Music News chose on its “Best of 2008” list.

The next year will see the release of Positive Catastrophe's debut recording (Garabatos Volume One, Cuneiform, May 2009), and SpiderMonkey Strings' second album (Madeleine Dreams, Firehouse 12, September 2009), in addition to new CDs by the collaborative groups The Thirteenth Assembly ((un)sentimental, Important), the Nate Wooley/Taylor Ho Bynum Quartet (The Throes, CIMP), and The OtherTet (self-titled, Engine).

His ensembles have been featured at festivals and concerts throughout Europe and North America, including performances at Portugal’s Jazz em Agosto, Austria’s Ulrichsberg Kaleidophon, Belgium’s deSingel Theater, Amsterdam’s Bimhuis, Chicago’s Umbrella Music Festival, and many of New York City’s top venues, including the Vision Festival, the Whitney Museum, Roulette, the Jazz Standard, and the Jazz Gallery. Profiles of Bynum have aired on BBC Radio 3, WNYC, and NPR, and in 2007 he was spotlighted in Downbeat Magazine as one of “25 Trumpeters For the Future.”

In addition to his own groups, Bynum regularly performs with some of the most innovative figures in creative music, including Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, and Bill Dixon. His work with Braxton ranges from duo to orchestra, touring throughout the world with Braxton’s Trio, Quartet, Quintet, Sextet, Septet and (12+1)tet, co-conducting Braxton’s Ulrichsberg Tri-Centric Ensemble in Austria, co-conducting the premiere of his Composition 19 for 100 Tubas in New York City, and performing and organizing the premieres of Braxton’s Composition 103 for seven trumpets and Composition 169 for brass quintet. Their CD Duets (Wesleyan) 2002 has received wide critical acclaim, and Bynum is featured on several other Braxton recordings, including Quintet (London) 2004, Sextet (Victoriaville) 2005, 4 Compositions (Ulrichsberg) 2005, Trio (Glasgow) 2005, 9 Compositions (Iridium) 2006, Trio (Victoriaville) 2007, 12+1tet (Victoriaville) 2007, and Quartet (Moscow) 2008.

Bynum maintains ongoing collaborations with such artists as Bill Lowe, Mary Halvorson, Abraham Gomez-Delgado, Jason Kao Hwang, Tomas Fujiwara, Kwaku Kwaakye Obeng, Joe Morris, Joseph Daley, Jessica Pavone, Stephen Haynes, Matt Bauder, Nate Wooley, Laura Andel, Harris Eisenstadt, Jen Shyu, James Jabbo Ware, Jean-Luc Cappozzo, Jean-Jacques Avenel, John Betsch, Warren Smith, Kyoko Kitamura, Rodrigo Amado, the Convergence Quartet, the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra, and the Fully Celebrated Orchestra, among many others. He is featured on over fifty CDs, and has performed throughout the world, including in the US, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, the UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Norway, Poland, and Russia.

Bynum is also deeply involved with the arts community as an educator, writer, organizer, and producer. He has taught all ages, from kindergarten through college, and serves as a development consultant for Creative Capital, one the nation's premier organizations for the support of individual artists. He is a founding partner of Firehouse 12 Records and is a board member and curator for the Festival of New Trumpet Music under the artistic direction of Dave Douglas. Bynum was an Artist-in-Residence at the 2008 Edgefest and the 2005 Antwerp (Belgium) Free Music Festival, a 2004 Fellow at the Art Omi International Music Residency, and a 2003 Nominee for the Alpert Award for the Arts, and in the summer of 2009 will be teaching at the Vancouver Creative Music Institute.