New Haven's Firehouse 12 Records is proud to announce the release of the Taylor Ho Bynum Sextet's The Middle Picture (FH12-04-01-002), the second of two new projects signifying the label's official launch on April 3rd. Led by New York-based cornetist/composer Taylor Ho Bynum, who also appears on the label's other initial release, the Anthony Braxton 12+1tet's 9 Compositions (Iridium) 2006 (FH12-04-03-001), this working sextet features saxophonist/ clarinetist Matt Bauder, guitarists Mary Halvorson and Evan O'Reilly, violist/bassist Jessica Pavone and drummer Tomas Fujiwara. The Middle Picture features live and studio performances at The Rotunda in Philadelphia and New Haven's Firehouse 12 over the past two years. “There is much in between the pressing issues of the world and the mundane toils of the everyday," writes Bynum in the liner notes. “I call it the middle picture: the pursuit of one's life goals, the search for one's true calling, the cultivation of one's personal relationships. And right now, my middle picture is pretty great. I'm in a happy marriage, I have dear friends and family, I get to make music I love with people I profoundly respect. While acknowledging the larger and smaller realities of the world, I try to focus on the middle picture, and hope that some of that positive energy and inspiration can influence the pictures on either side. The music on this album grows out of that middle picture, and is dedicated to that hope."
Critics have called Bynum “a strong cornetist and serious-minded composer with experimental tendencies" (Nate Chinen, The New York Times) and “an agile and creative improviser who sounds like no one but himself" (Chris Kelsey, JazzTimes ). His sextet, which AllAboutJazz-New York's David R. Adler recently described as “virtuosity on its own terms," is committed to further exploring the extensions of composition and improvisation pioneered by Duke Ellington, Charles Ives and Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), but with a trickster sensibility and a third millennium flavor. Along with his sextet, and a pared down trio version with Halvorson and Fujiwara, Bynum leads or co-leads a variety of other ensembles, in addition to a multitude of sideman work with groups such as Anthony Braxton's trio and sextet, the Fully Celebrated Orchestra, Jason Kao Hwang's Edge, Miya Masaoka's Chironomy and the Cecil Taylor Orchestra.
For more information contact Improvised Communications.
