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Chicago Reader Critic's Choice
Nate McBride &Taylor Ho Bynum
Many musicians who study and perform with reedist and composer Anthony Braxton end up defined by the association, but cornet player Taylor Ho Bynum has escaped the master's shadow. There was never any doubting Bynum's technical excellence, but on a number of recent recordings he's proved he has his own ideas, and they're good ones. The exciting lineup on Other Stories (Three Suites), from 2005, matches Bynum and his malleable, richly striated tone with string players using both extended and conventional techniques. On the brand-new True Events (482 Music), Bynum and drummer Tomas Fujiwara combine loosely notated ideas with game concepts and other improvisational schemes to shape pieces that range comfortably from skeletal postbop to pure abstraction. And the tunes on the forthcoming The Middle Picture (Firehouse 12) tack toward and away from tidy structure just as smartly. Though the two-guitar sextet lineup on that album alludes to bands led by Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, and Henry Threadgill, Bynum's version achieves a uniquely spidery, stinging sound. Tonight Bynum plays a duo set with bassist Nate McBride; tomorrow at the Velvet Lounge they'll both perform as part of a group led by Fujiwara, alongside wonderful Brooklyn guitarist Mary Halvorson (she and Fujiwara are both on the sextet record) and flutist Nicole Mitchell. See also Tuesday.
- Peter Margasak