Former new kid of brass Taylor Ho Bynum has settled, as much as anyone playing ambitious music informed by the directly communicated influences of Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, and Bill Dixon, into a career that balances sustainability and growth. He teaches at Dartmouth, plays some in freely improvised and collaborative small group settings, and keeps one band going where he can work through and present his concepts. The 9-tette is that band. It doesn’t always have the same name; over the last decade it has varied in size from a sextet to a 15-piece “PlusTet,” and Bynum changes the name to reflect its dimensions. But it is always built out from a core of peers, guitarist Mary Halvorson and drummer Tomas Fujiwara, to create a platform for more experienced elders who nurture his ambition and keep him humble, and new associates who enable him to obtain new sound combinations. Together they express the musical concerns that keep Bynum going, and enact by example the interpersonal/musical dynamics that speak against the social concerns that keep him up at night.
Enter the PlusTet, which was released three years ago, combined metaphorical and intentional activity that talked back against the tenor of the times with the sheer joy of making a big, organized sound that engaged the skills and imaginations of a multitude. The Ambiguity Manifesto scales things back, but it retains the potential for subsets of musicians to periodically break out, engage in small group exchanges, and then re-cohere into full-ensemble formation. The biggest change in the sound comes from acoustic bassist Ken Filiano and electric bassist Stomu Takeishi. They join forces with Halvorson to snake filaments of wired sound between tectonic brass and string passages and through Fujiwara’s rustling, one-man forest of sound. The titles of its compositions include shout-outs to inspirations, including Anthony Braxton, Ursula K. LeGuin, and “Old Music.” But the slowly emerging Rube Goldberg-like funk machine of “enter (g) neither,” “(g)host(aa/ab)’s” twisting journey through nether regions of electro-acoustic murk and pocket-orchestral upheaval, or the gradually uncoiling, abstracted ballad “real/unreal (for ursula k. le guin)” all invite the listener to simply dive in, experience this stuff as music, and marvel at how it unfolds. The intricate, improvised exchanges, masterful exchanges of gradual changes, and juxtapositions of color and texture are all deeply rewarding
