Taylor Ho Bynum, cornet; Matt Bauder, tenor saxophone & bass clarinet; Jessica Pavone, viola; Mary Halvorson, electric guitar; Evan O’Reilly, electric guitar; Tomas Fujiwara, drums

I first came across Taylor Ho Bynum and one of the guitarists on this date, Mary Halvorson, when they appeared as members of the Anthony Braxton quintet that played London’s Royal Festival Hall in November 2004. That concert produced the excellent CD Quintet (London) 2004. Bynum’s music has a similar skittering complexity to Braxton’s, and rewards deep listening in the same way, but it assumes more readily discernible forms and may be more immediately appealing for any listeners who may be deterred by Braxton’s formidably academic image.

Just one of many instances of Bynum and Halvorson’s mutually attentive empathy can be found in a dialogue 30 minutes into part 1 of the Royal Festival Hall recording. For Asphalt Flowers, however, Halvorson is paired with second electric guitarist, Evan O’Reilly, and deployed primarily to add texture to the group sound. Both guitarists favour a dry, picked technique that rejects the effects-laden riffing beloved of rock guitarists for a spiky pointillism that compliments Jessica Pavone’s viola and the upper register of Bynum’s cornet. The absence of a bassist could have rendered such a grouping off-puttingly flinty, but Bynum’s compositions have a thoroughgoing melodicism that precludes this, and Matt Bauder’s tenor sax and bass clarinet add warmth and vibrancy. Tomas Fujiwara’s drums work hard to galvanize the group sound, and he does a fine uplifting job. 

Asphalt Flowers is a carefully balanced album. It bookends a three-part suite with two shorter pieces and opening and closing solo statements, titled Open and Close respectively, from Bynum’s cornet. 

Bynum has a broad range, but is characteristically dry and breathy rather than songlike. The closest comparison, tonally, might be with the great but under-recorded American Bill Dixon. Open begins proceedings with sustained high cornet calls and blurry, strangulated soloing by Bynum. This is answered by bright, swinging drum work from Fujiwara as he kicks off the first ensemble track, Look Below. There are crisp interjections from both guitarists. Bynum comes back with a rapid solo, and eventually cornet and guitars smear together before giving way to a dynamic drum solo and theme restatement. This establishes the group dynamic, with various permutations of the ensemble emerging by turn to interrogate specific facets of the composition, then giving way to another grouping or soloist. The transitions are distinct and happen quickly but are never jarring. The music’s thematic contours are always implicit, and when they become explicit the effect is galvanizing. 

The meat of the album is the three-part composition whYeXpliCitieS. Part 1 opens with striking effects-laden guitar chords, and the pressure builds to a queasy intensity with the addition of Pavone’s bowed viola. This whorl of sound dies eventually ebbs away to plucked strings and then an almost folksy viola solo with subtle bass clarinet accompaniment. (The music here, as occasionally elsewhere, sounds something like the one-off recording of the Bill Frisell Quartet that featured violinist Eyvind Kang.) The uneasy atmosphere is re-established by a further viola solo, with Fujiwara’s brushed cymbals establishing a kinetic momentum that leads to a drum feature, before the ensemble comes together again for the theme. Part 2 is brighter, albeit the individual instruments seem to be probing a compositional void, only the intertwining of the various string sounds giving the proceedings some solidity. Somehow, despite eddies of interference from the guitars, this passage resolves into a relatively long saxophone solo which becomes increasingly lyrical as Bauder rides the piece out to the accompaniment of Jujiwara’s drums. The saxophone also begins Part 3, with an almost songlike theme which is taken up by the viola. This continuity is welcome but short-lived, as the tune becomes more hesitant, falters, and almost gives up the ghost. Guitars and drums probe for a new way forward. Bynum enters, lyrically but not emphatically at first, thereafter merging with the guitars and drums to surge toward a loose groove. Again it’s the saxophone that finally breaks out; pulling the ensemble into an acceleration of tempo and intensity that finally becomes overtly lyrical. A bright, insistent acoustic guitar solo closes the piece. In contrast to the simple hooks of certain songs that are impossible to dislodge from the mind, whYeXpliCitieS lingers in the consciousness as a series of musical puzzles, or an index of possibilities. It bears repeated listening.

The second of the album’s minor pieces, Goffstown, is more concise and structured, with light tom toms and cymbals surging beneath a slow, emotionally neutral cornet theme. Bynum’s concluding statement, Close, is contrastingly fast and puckered. At the end of the album, as at the end of so many journeys, there is no resolution; there are many forking paths still to be taken.

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