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21+. 9pm.Tomas Fujiwara (drums) and Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet), with second set guests Ayako Kato and Rachel Bernsen (movement) and Jason Roebke (bass)
Over the past thirty years, over twenty-five albums and hundreds of gigs in dozens 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 Crowns (with Mary Halvorson and Benoit Delbecq) and the Thirteenth Assembly (with Halvorson and Jessica Pavone), and the Chicago meets NYC supergroup Living By Lanterns. Throughout this history, they've maintained their duo, which has released four albums: "True Events" (2007), "Stepwise" (2010), "Through Foundation" (2014), and "Notice" (2022).
The first set will be Fujiwara and Bynum's first duo performance in Chicago in a decade. For the second set, they will be joined by dancers Ayako Kato and Rachel Bernsen and bassist Jason Roebke, to improvise in response to materials from Bill Dixon's Index - the first in a series of explorations into this composition with a variety of configurations that Bynum is organizing around Dixon's 2025 centennial.
BIOS
Described as “a ubiquitous presence in the New York scene…an artist whose urbane writing is equal to his impressively nuanced drumming,” (Point 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 Triple Double, 7 Poets Trio, and Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up; is a member of the collective trio Thumbscrew (with Mary Halvorson and Michael Formanek); has a collaborative duo with Taylor Ho Bynum; and engages in a diversity 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 "Dream Up," a suite for percussion quartet, commissioned by NYSCA and Roulette Intermedium. “Drummer Tomas Fujiwara works with rhythm as a pliable substance, solid but ever shifting. His style is forward-driving but rarely blunt or aggressive, and never random. He has away 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) https://www.tomasfujiwara.com/
Taylor Ho Bynum is a musician, teacher, and writer, with a background including work in composition, performance, interdisciplinary collaboration, production, organizing, and advocacy. His expressionistic playing on cornet and other brass instruments, his expansive vision as composer, and his idiosyncratic improvisational approach have been documented on over twenty recordings as a bandleader and over a hundred as a sideperson. His past endeavors include his Acoustic Bicycle Tours (where he traveled to concerts solely by bike across thousands of miles) and his stewardship of Anthony Braxton’s Tri-Centric Foundation (which he served as executive 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 and 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, and Joe Morris), and as a sideperson in groups led by Fujiwara, Reid, Jim Hobbs, Bill Lowe, Bill Cole, and William Parker, among others, and his writing has been published in The New Yorker, The Baffler, Point of Departure and Sound American. https://taylorhobynum.com/
SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY AS COLLABORATORS
As duo:
True Events (2007), Stepwise (2010), Through Foundation (2014), and Notice (2022)
w/Tomas Fujiwara’s Triple Double:
Triple Double (2018), March (2022), March On (2023)
w/Taylor Ho Bynum’s Sextet, 7-tette, 9-tette, Plustet:
The Middle Picture (2007), Asphalt Flowers Forking Paths (2008), Apparent Distance (2011), Navigation (2013), Enter the Plustet (2016), The Ambiguity Manifesto (2019)
w/Illegal Crowns:
Illegal Crowns (2016), The No-Nosed Puppet (2019), Unclosing (2023)
w/Thirteenth Assembly:
(un)sentimental (2008), Station Direct (2011)
other recorded projects include:
Positive Catastrophe – Garabatos Volume One (2009), Dibrujo, Dibrujo, Dibrujo… (2012); Living by Lanterns – New Myth/Old Science (2012); Nate Wooley/Taylor Ho Bynum Quartet – The Throes (2011); Stephen Haynes/Taylor Ho Bynum – The Double Trio (2008); Matana Roberts Quartet – The Calling (2006); Anthony Braxton – Creative Music Orchestra (NYC) 2011 (2012)
Performances and tours of all of the above projects throughout the past 20 years.
Photos by Julian Parker-Burns
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
2319 W Belmont Ave Chicago IL 60618, 2319 W Belmont Ave, Chicago, IL 60618-6422, United States,Chicago, Illinois
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