Vol. 1, No. 3
AN INTERVIEW WITH
TAYLOR HO BYNUM
Vol. 1, No. 3
Jack Langdon interviews his former teacher and musical collaborator Taylor Ho Bynum, an accomplished cornetist, composer, educator and writer who has been living in rural Vermont since 2020. The two discuss the relationships between music, place, nature, professional life, and community.
JL
How does living in Vermont compare to your time in New Haven, New York, Boston, et cetera, and how has the experience of being up here changed your perspective on the work?
THB
I've loved living in Vermont and it's mostly because I find being outside—with a little bit lower population density—just listening to and being part of nature, the larger environment, existence, et cetera, has been very beneficial to me. I've always sought that out wherever I've lived, but I have trended increasingly in that direction. It has its pros and cons, of course.
Luckily, between the students and colleagues I connect with teaching up here and some other folks who live in the area and then older connections I have in Boston, New Haven, and New York, I can stay pretty musically active, which is nice, but it's a different kind of active than when I lived in those larger population areas. And so I think for where I'm at, at my stage of life and my practice—and specifically with a musical practice—it works nicely. I think, if I was in a different discipline that needed more ongoing collaborative partnerships, or if I was at a different stage of life where I needed to be out hearing stuff more often, I think it might not be as good a fit, but for right now, it's been working out extremely well.
Being here reminds me that, ultimately, whether one is taking a political approach, or an aesthetic approach, or a spiritual approach, or some combination of all of the above, it really does feel like one of the best things we can do is just remind ourselves to use our art to show how to better listen to nature, existence, and the environment. Ultimately, we should make the type of music that makes itself superfluous, but we are far from that because right now, this culture and society so desperately needs those old codes and those old translations. And I think for me, that's more and more what I'm interested in doing and connecting to is just trying to maintain, expand, perpetuate, and share a kind of creativity that opens us up to a different kind of communication with a more-than-human world in some ways. Being up here with such readily available time outside has made that feel even more present, you know. I mean, I just walked down to this 250 acre park at the end of my block and it has turtles and heron and bald eagle. It's also an artificial environment because it's a man-made lake from a century ago and the highway goes past it, but it's also extraordinary and beautiful. The juxtaposition of all of these realities feels pretty necessary to me right now.
JL
Do you feel like in previous places that you've lived that this listening space which comes along with being in more natural environments is something you've sought out as an individual? Is it a part of the poetic thinking about your work as well?
THB
Yeah, I think I definitely feel I've learned that I can only think creatively outside and in motion, you know.
JL
Your work with the bike tours makes sense then.
THB
Yeah, biking makes sense, hiking makes sense. Like even just swimming, like that's when ideas work and kind of clarify for me. Of course there's endless work after that—after that little moment of creative spark—whether it's in terms of pedagogical work or producing something or composing something. Like there's always gonna be the follow-up work and the specifics and the logistics and the administration and then the orchestration and the arranging and all of that stuff. But I do feel like I figure out the puzzle—like the outline of the puzzles—when I'm outside.
So yeah, I found being outside pretty essential—even though right now I'm happily taking a little break from composing—even just creative thinking, it really feels like that's necessary for me.
JL
With the shift towards living in Vermont—you moved in, was it in early 2020?
THB
Yeah, yeah, yeah—we moved up to Vermont during the first couple of months into the pandemic era.
JL
Right. So during that period you had somewhat of a qualitatively different geographical place that you're living in, during a very unusual time to be a musician—and that was incidentally when we started working together. And we just started, you know, playing as a means of finding some peacefulness and musical connection during a time when, more or less, that was not gonna be possible in physical space together.
And I'm kind of just curious, like from that era during the two years that we were locked away from the normal way of existing with each other as musicians—if there's anything that came from that era that was particularly enlightening to you, or like a moment of clarity that you carry with yourself in the post-lockdown era that we all inhabit currently?
THB
I feel like the core was—the core clarification, the core realization—was in some ways very simple, and it is a realization I'd been leaning towards, but the pandemic provided a bigger experimental sample size than what I would have voluntarily chosen . It was realizing that I missed playing with my friends desperately, like desperately, and I did not miss almost anything else about the music business, not at all. (laughs)
So it was a nice shift. It allowed me—now that things are starting to roll up again—it really allowed me to prioritize differently. I think before that—as is inevitable for any musician who had been out in the field for 20 years trying to get my music out there, support the music of others, do the work—I wanted to do things very differently. Back in the day, my friends’ nickname for me was Taylor Ho Business. You know what I mean? (laughs)
I was dealing, I was trying to run organizations, I was trying to run record labels, I was trying to put on festivals. I'm really proud and glad for all that work I did and I learned so much from it—it was so meaningful—and I feel like I don't need to keep doing that. I feel that for me, that part of the profession felt like its own career in some ways—and felt like a career I'm willing and happy to be done with. In a good way, with a feeling of real satisfaction. And a feeling that I can retire from it in some ways and still occasionally come out of retirement and exercise those skills as might be useful to support other folks' music.
JL
Absolutely.
THB
I recognized that this was in support of, but ultimately a different practice than, getting to make that music. Of course, it is one that so many artists are forced to wed themselves to for reasons of survival. One often has to be one's own business person to be an artist. Especially to build a career and to get opportunities to create. But at this point in my life, I feel I am lucky to have enough ongoing relationships that I feel I can keep playing music without having to get involved in that way again. So that's the major one, and a pretty obvious one, but a good one.
That was one of the joys of us getting together to play, 'cause it really was a reminder that whatever else was happening, nothing else compares to sitting with somebody else and trying to make sound. We could be on opposite ends of a big church, but we could make it work.
JL
Right. Not that I had the weight of 20 years of, you know, hustling a career suddenly stopping to act as that break for me, but in many ways, I felt the smaller version of that with the space that that opened in academia during the pandemic. The very directed nature that comes along with being a part of a program like we had at Dartmouth and then suddenly just being like, “okay, that's gonna continue in its own compromised manner, but here's this extra space that's opened up just to purely enjoy the process of making sound together” was also extremely clarifying. In no small way, something that I took away from that period is just the inherent value of making sound together—the value in it aside from the infrastructure to give it this sense of external social value. So in that way, it's been very nice to carry that with me because I have this reminder that that's all it takes.
You and I, I think, play well together, but we're also not coming from the same musical background by any stretch. So that as a microcosm in itself is a great reminder of, even in the simplest form, that you can do this with basically anybody and find this very special dimension about music making that you might easily forget actually exists underneath all of the life of being a professional.
THB
Oh, no, totally. I mean, I think it's funny how the deepest lessons are the simplest, especially amidst this the era of the academization of improvisation and improvisation conferences. At its core, it allows you to communicate with another human being regardless of language or genre. As long as you have some sense as an improviser within your tradition, you can find a way to make music with almost any other human being who has improvisation as one of their practices, you know? And that is an incredibly radical proposition, if you think about it. That there is something beyond everything else that connects us deeper than all of the other structures that we exist within. I know it's simplistic and it's utopic—but it's real at the same time. So it's nice to be reminded of that sometimes.
JL
I wanna ask you about your day job as a teacher. For a lot of us, we have these day jobs where the quality of work we put in is somewhat irrelevant, you know. (laughs) But, you are a very sensitive teacher as well and have a real sense of the responsibility of it all. I'm curious about how you bridge that gap as a teacher between the wisdom gained from people that you've been a mentee of and who have guided your way as a musician and how you transmit or adapt those bits of wisdom to your students.
THB
I was very, very lucky to have had some core and formative mentors who were able to exist within, yet ultimately deeply transcend the structures of traditional academia.
So, I think using academia as “that's where you go to get paid to teach,” one can't let those institutional priorities dictate how you teach or what you teach, you know? And I think, so I've been very lucky with that 'cause there's a lot of funny contradictions within traditions of jazz and black creative music being taught in these incredibly elite and privileged institutions of higher education. Like obviously, on an intellectual and philosophical level, this is one of the great philosophical artistic movements of the 20th century. It has to be part of the academic conversation if these institutions are ultimately about preserving that kind of intellectual and philosophical conversation, but of course the institutions are about a lot more.
And so some of the additional things they are about perhaps…
JL
…create a tension with some of the principles and philosophies of the music.
THB
Right. Especially in a liberal arts context where it's not a conservatory, no one is coming to me with elevated technical skills to make a living with, which is extremely freeing. I'm in this weird situation now where increasingly my role is explicitly non-curricular, which has its frustrations at some times, but also has its freedoms. The joke I came up with recently is that I either wanna be the “chaplain or the counselor of the creative weird,” and that's my primary allegiance. And right now I do that working at the institution of Dartmouth College, but my job is just when I find folks—whatever the context is—who are interested in exploring the creative weird of any genre or discipline, or just understanding that what they want to do creatively or spiritually or aesthetically doesn't seem to fit into the overarching goals and priorities and structures of the society we're within, is to help them find ways to do that.
For me, that feels like one of the reasons why so much great arts has—not exclusively come from—but so much great art has come from disenfranchised communities. I think one of the artists' roles is to imagine other structures that might make more sense than what we are presented with currently and the less they feel committed to be part of the dominant structure, the more creative and I think the more interesting those re-manifestations might be. But that also comes from people who might have emerged from the most privileged parts of that dominant structure. For me right now, it just feels like an interesting space—just for the students that feel like they want to explore something different—it's nice to be there for them.
There are some overarching philosophies and practices that I think I got directly from my mentors and I'm very happy to try to pass on of certain approaches to music-making and ways to think about collectivity and collaboration and, you know, creativity. And I think increasingly it feels not very genre-specific. I think so much traditional pedagogy is good, like I'm really happy when my students know how to play their scales. That makes it much easier for me to teach the shit I want to teach.
I've just never been as attracted to or skilled at teaching people their scales. I think I'm a little better at drawing out something inside of them that might be looking for something different, if that makes sense. So as long as I can keep doing that, I find teaching to be a deeply rewarding pastime, you know? Pastime, education, profession, I don't know which ever one of those it is.
(both laugh)
JL
Yeah. That spirit and strength to be able to follow the vision of necessity and fix the gaps you see in the world. That's a very, very tough thing to find the confidence to do without somebody who has been there to guide the way. And I'm sure that we both feel this way, but encountering those specific... “weirdos” for lack of a better term—the fact that they simply exist just proves the point that there are other ways that you can be a musician that are based on your own intuition and the way that you work out the limitations of the culture that we see, regardless of where you come from.
THB
Exactly.
It's interesting, I had a student come to me recently and, you know, she was about to graduate. So she has all of the weight of the future on her shoulders and is trying to figure out if she can be an artist and really do it. And so she asked me, “are you happy?” Which is sort of like, “Woah! That's actually a very heavy question!”
JL
It is, yeah. (laughs)
THB
It was, but it was great! I'm glad she asked! And I thought about it and I was like, “you know, I am happy, but one cannot necessarily control happiness because that is very externally affected.” But I can absolutely promise that pursuing this creative practice—pursuing something in the arts and music and sound for reasons other than immediate fame or commercial gain—has given me a practice that has helped me figure out my life and get through it with a consistent philosophy and spiritual grounding that has saved me from some of the stresses I've seen my peers and others go through. And so, you know, one cannot promise happiness 'cause one cannot know what is gonna happen, but some of the deepest joys and contentments I've found have come from this practice. And so in that sense, I can say yes. I feel like as long as I'm not telling someone they can make a—you know—a comfortable living from it or make a lot of money—and sometimes that's a much better question. Like, I can absolutely promise as a teacher that I do not regret having made music such an important part of my life and that I feel like that is something that has helped me just beyond measure just navigate the day to day. But as long as that's the criteria… (laughs) …I can support it entirely.
I thought about this a lot because I'm really allergic to social media. I just really struggle with that and with the interfacing of technological platforms. I'm lucky enough now to make music from the position of a career that was mostly developed before the necessity of social media. There was definitely an encouragement to do self publicity and promotion when I was coming up. These were the early days of online publicity. I had my MySpace page, I had my website, I did all those, I did my email list. But it's gotten so much deeper now since then where it's really your primary means of finding an audience or engaging with an audience or finding a presenter or finding anyone to support your work. And I don't know if I would have wanted to do that. You know, I mean, either I might've made the choice earlier to really keep music as something for myself, but not to try to commodify it so much. Pursue a practice where there wasn't such a pressure to engage in that type of publicity.
So I feel, again, it's hard with students when I acknowledge that that's, in some ways, such a reality. I don't wanna infect my students with my luddite pretensions when I know that, if they want to be working musicians, they need to get their work out there. And that is the way you need to get your work out there right now.
So I don't know if I would have done it, but also one would hope someone 20-plus years younger than me has a different relationship to technology than I do—for better or for worse—at least more fluent with it so that it might be less of a misery for them.
JL
Definitely, definitely. I think for a lot of us, we see a lot of people that feel that social media is the primary means of building community, which is a very difficult sort of foundation to build relationships with other people. And sometimes it works out great, like I really do feel glad that I'm able to connect with people halfway across the world, just off of pure, mutual interest in things.
At the same time, there's a lack of inherent goodwill that sometimes just isn’t a worry when you're meeting people in person. You know, you bump shoulders with somebody at a show and get a conversation going—that seems to be a much more durable way of building a relationship. It points to a broader question of just what type of kind of community do you want to be a part of and how is that community mediated—through social media or I mean, even specific venues that you might show up to or different social spaces.
THB
No, absolutely, and I think that's where I also want to be careful. I mean, that's an interesting challenge for me as a teacher. It's funny, I could have had some of my mentors say, "Once you get signed to a record label, then, you know, you'll do your first European tour." Well, those don't exist anymore. And even now I might say, “yeah, once you put your own record out,” you're like, “no, no, why would we put a record out?” Like, you know what I mean? (laughs)
It is funny knowing there's some advice that easily transcends generations and some that doesn't. I think it's interesting, particularly around the sort of technological and business side of it—the “practical” side of it—seems constantly changing. But then the beautiful thing is that across generations, some core musical principles still connect. So, you know, that's why it's fun having projects where I've had people in their twenties and people in their eighties in the same band. There's something so beautiful about that. We can all still connect easier through the music than we could through any other means, in any other context, in any other conversation, in any other point of connection. And that, again, I feel that demonstrates the inherent power and beauty of music. It helps me prioritize what to focus on when I teach in some ways: trusting that much of my knowledge might become immediately obsolete and that's okay. And you do not feel the need to share the parts of it that are obsolete, but you keep connecting back to the things that have seemed to have been proven timeless over generations before when I had gotten involved, you know what I mean?
JL
Absolutely. Well, and that should give us all a sense of peace, I think, because all of the work that we put into the total experience of being a musician, it can all fall apart, but there's still that really rich and powerful middle space between everybody as individuals where—even though I'm inclined to feel it's maybe a bit naive or utopian—you make sound together and something happens that transcends the need to sell yourself or the need to feel like you're a part of a hierarchy, because you're not: you're just making sound together.
THB
Exactly, exactly, yeah.
So we'll see, and again, if nothing else, there's a nice, interesting thing about being up here in Vermont. I don't know what I would call it, but I’ve been practicing improvising more often. I improvise more, often for myself. Like, I feel for years, you know, one's practice was different than one's performance, right? Where my practice would be, I'd be doing the rudiments and the scales and running the tunes we might be playing, but I didn't spend as much time practicing quote-unquote “improvisation” because I felt so much that improvising—so much of the joy I took out of improvising—was around the communication with other people. Now that I'm up here—I get to hear less music, I play with people less often—I actually find that what is most rewarding in my practice is actually improvising for myself, playing as a way of keeping myself interested. And there's actually something very freeing about that. If nothing else, if I can keep playing the way that I like, I can find a moment of joy. Just like taking a beautiful walk, I can find that moment of joy completely self-sufficiently. I can find that moment of joy of making sound on my instrument and then that joy can be heightened if I'm sharing it with somebody. That's extraordinary.
But I don't need to depend on anyone else for that moment of joy, and in some ways that allows me, even though that sounds very self-centered in a way, it actually allows me to push less and sort of accept those beautiful moments more and then have more control over them for myself. And so then I feel like I'm not desperate for someone else's thing, where I'm gonna try to hunt for the gig or hunt for the thing or whatever, you know what I mean?
JL
Absolutely. I mean, the inherent joy of doing things is always a good basis for any type of human activity somehow! (laughs)
THB
It is, it really is. (laughs)
JL
Don't know why you don't hear people say that more often. (both laughing)
Well, I think the last question that I wanna ask is just, you know, in light of all of this and where you're at in your life, what are the things that you hope to yet accomplish as a musician and as a teacher? If there is indeed anything, that is! I don't know, maybe you've completely accepted where you're at—I wouldn’t blame you! (laughs)
THB
Honestly, yeah, it's interesting. I think it really comes down to a desire to just maintain a level of stability, sustainability and contentment, you know? Like, I think it's been rare. I feel like I'm in a space right now that feels dangerously good. (laughs)
Good in a way that I'm not pushing for. Just enough is happening for me to feel really engaged and really happy and I'm not having to push, and it's with people I really care about, and I’m able to prioritize the things I care about. However, I do wonder if that dries up, if I'm coasting towards the bottom of a hill as opposed to being carried by the wind, if that makes sense.
JL
Yeah, definitely.
THB
If I'm coasting down, I hope I can let it coast down without feeling like I need to turn on the engine again. Let's put it that way. I hope that I can keep this coast going for as long as I stay on this planet making sound. If I don't, I hope I can rebalance in a way that continues to feel stable and sustainable.
I feel that for the first 20 plus years of my professional career, I always had an idea of what my next big project was gonna be, or the next project on the horizon. Also, I was working for Anthony Braxton, so Braxton had, literally 3000 pages written up what the next big projects will be for the next several millennia. There was always this sense of “going for the next big thing.” I'm so glad I did that and that I learned things, I produced things, I got to be involved with projects because of that approach that enriched my life. So much so that I actually feel quite content with that kind of ambition being in the past right now. Right now it's more like, what can I do to keep finding those moments of joy with people that I love and sharing it in such a way that might help out some others as well. And just, that feels like enough right now. I mean, again, I'm sure some other things will start itching at different points and I want to honor those itches as they come, but right now, I'm feeling pretty good.
JL
An awesome answer, man. (laughing)
Being in touch with that—that's larger than being a musician, obviously. And I hope that no matter what you do, that other musicians ask these same questions and cultivate a sense of confidence in that intuition. That you can really be in control of what your goal is even with accepting a sense of goallessness as the point.
THB
I mean, it could either be intuition or absolute self delusion, but right now, it's working for me okay. And so let's see what this is. (laughs)
JL
Good! Well, if it ends up being delusion, I'll kick your ass in 10 years and make you do something. (both laughing)
THB
Okay, right on, I appreciate that!
How does living in Vermont compare to your time in New Haven, New York, Boston, et cetera, and how has the experience of being up here changed your perspective on the work?
THB
I've loved living in Vermont and it's mostly because I find being outside—with a little bit lower population density—just listening to and being part of nature, the larger environment, existence, et cetera, has been very beneficial to me. I've always sought that out wherever I've lived, but I have trended increasingly in that direction. It has its pros and cons, of course.
Luckily, between the students and colleagues I connect with teaching up here and some other folks who live in the area and then older connections I have in Boston, New Haven, and New York, I can stay pretty musically active, which is nice, but it's a different kind of active than when I lived in those larger population areas. And so I think for where I'm at, at my stage of life and my practice—and specifically with a musical practice—it works nicely. I think, if I was in a different discipline that needed more ongoing collaborative partnerships, or if I was at a different stage of life where I needed to be out hearing stuff more often, I think it might not be as good a fit, but for right now, it's been working out extremely well.
Being here reminds me that, ultimately, whether one is taking a political approach, or an aesthetic approach, or a spiritual approach, or some combination of all of the above, it really does feel like one of the best things we can do is just remind ourselves to use our art to show how to better listen to nature, existence, and the environment. Ultimately, we should make the type of music that makes itself superfluous, but we are far from that because right now, this culture and society so desperately needs those old codes and those old translations. And I think for me, that's more and more what I'm interested in doing and connecting to is just trying to maintain, expand, perpetuate, and share a kind of creativity that opens us up to a different kind of communication with a more-than-human world in some ways. Being up here with such readily available time outside has made that feel even more present, you know. I mean, I just walked down to this 250 acre park at the end of my block and it has turtles and heron and bald eagle. It's also an artificial environment because it's a man-made lake from a century ago and the highway goes past it, but it's also extraordinary and beautiful. The juxtaposition of all of these realities feels pretty necessary to me right now.
JL
Do you feel like in previous places that you've lived that this listening space which comes along with being in more natural environments is something you've sought out as an individual? Is it a part of the poetic thinking about your work as well?
THB
Yeah, I think I definitely feel I've learned that I can only think creatively outside and in motion, you know.
JL
Your work with the bike tours makes sense then.
THB
Yeah, biking makes sense, hiking makes sense. Like even just swimming, like that's when ideas work and kind of clarify for me. Of course there's endless work after that—after that little moment of creative spark—whether it's in terms of pedagogical work or producing something or composing something. Like there's always gonna be the follow-up work and the specifics and the logistics and the administration and then the orchestration and the arranging and all of that stuff. But I do feel like I figure out the puzzle—like the outline of the puzzles—when I'm outside.
So yeah, I found being outside pretty essential—even though right now I'm happily taking a little break from composing—even just creative thinking, it really feels like that's necessary for me.
JL
With the shift towards living in Vermont—you moved in, was it in early 2020?
THB
Yeah, yeah, yeah—we moved up to Vermont during the first couple of months into the pandemic era.
JL
Right. So during that period you had somewhat of a qualitatively different geographical place that you're living in, during a very unusual time to be a musician—and that was incidentally when we started working together. And we just started, you know, playing as a means of finding some peacefulness and musical connection during a time when, more or less, that was not gonna be possible in physical space together.
And I'm kind of just curious, like from that era during the two years that we were locked away from the normal way of existing with each other as musicians—if there's anything that came from that era that was particularly enlightening to you, or like a moment of clarity that you carry with yourself in the post-lockdown era that we all inhabit currently?
THB
I feel like the core was—the core clarification, the core realization—was in some ways very simple, and it is a realization I'd been leaning towards, but the pandemic provided a bigger experimental sample size than what I would have voluntarily chosen . It was realizing that I missed playing with my friends desperately, like desperately, and I did not miss almost anything else about the music business, not at all. (laughs)
So it was a nice shift. It allowed me—now that things are starting to roll up again—it really allowed me to prioritize differently. I think before that—as is inevitable for any musician who had been out in the field for 20 years trying to get my music out there, support the music of others, do the work—I wanted to do things very differently. Back in the day, my friends’ nickname for me was Taylor Ho Business. You know what I mean? (laughs)
I was dealing, I was trying to run organizations, I was trying to run record labels, I was trying to put on festivals. I'm really proud and glad for all that work I did and I learned so much from it—it was so meaningful—and I feel like I don't need to keep doing that. I feel that for me, that part of the profession felt like its own career in some ways—and felt like a career I'm willing and happy to be done with. In a good way, with a feeling of real satisfaction. And a feeling that I can retire from it in some ways and still occasionally come out of retirement and exercise those skills as might be useful to support other folks' music.
JL
Absolutely.
THB
I recognized that this was in support of, but ultimately a different practice than, getting to make that music. Of course, it is one that so many artists are forced to wed themselves to for reasons of survival. One often has to be one's own business person to be an artist. Especially to build a career and to get opportunities to create. But at this point in my life, I feel I am lucky to have enough ongoing relationships that I feel I can keep playing music without having to get involved in that way again. So that's the major one, and a pretty obvious one, but a good one.
That was one of the joys of us getting together to play, 'cause it really was a reminder that whatever else was happening, nothing else compares to sitting with somebody else and trying to make sound. We could be on opposite ends of a big church, but we could make it work.
JL
Right. Not that I had the weight of 20 years of, you know, hustling a career suddenly stopping to act as that break for me, but in many ways, I felt the smaller version of that with the space that that opened in academia during the pandemic. The very directed nature that comes along with being a part of a program like we had at Dartmouth and then suddenly just being like, “okay, that's gonna continue in its own compromised manner, but here's this extra space that's opened up just to purely enjoy the process of making sound together” was also extremely clarifying. In no small way, something that I took away from that period is just the inherent value of making sound together—the value in it aside from the infrastructure to give it this sense of external social value. So in that way, it's been very nice to carry that with me because I have this reminder that that's all it takes.
You and I, I think, play well together, but we're also not coming from the same musical background by any stretch. So that as a microcosm in itself is a great reminder of, even in the simplest form, that you can do this with basically anybody and find this very special dimension about music making that you might easily forget actually exists underneath all of the life of being a professional.
THB
Oh, no, totally. I mean, I think it's funny how the deepest lessons are the simplest, especially amidst this the era of the academization of improvisation and improvisation conferences. At its core, it allows you to communicate with another human being regardless of language or genre. As long as you have some sense as an improviser within your tradition, you can find a way to make music with almost any other human being who has improvisation as one of their practices, you know? And that is an incredibly radical proposition, if you think about it. That there is something beyond everything else that connects us deeper than all of the other structures that we exist within. I know it's simplistic and it's utopic—but it's real at the same time. So it's nice to be reminded of that sometimes.
JL
I wanna ask you about your day job as a teacher. For a lot of us, we have these day jobs where the quality of work we put in is somewhat irrelevant, you know. (laughs) But, you are a very sensitive teacher as well and have a real sense of the responsibility of it all. I'm curious about how you bridge that gap as a teacher between the wisdom gained from people that you've been a mentee of and who have guided your way as a musician and how you transmit or adapt those bits of wisdom to your students.
THB
I was very, very lucky to have had some core and formative mentors who were able to exist within, yet ultimately deeply transcend the structures of traditional academia.
So, I think using academia as “that's where you go to get paid to teach,” one can't let those institutional priorities dictate how you teach or what you teach, you know? And I think, so I've been very lucky with that 'cause there's a lot of funny contradictions within traditions of jazz and black creative music being taught in these incredibly elite and privileged institutions of higher education. Like obviously, on an intellectual and philosophical level, this is one of the great philosophical artistic movements of the 20th century. It has to be part of the academic conversation if these institutions are ultimately about preserving that kind of intellectual and philosophical conversation, but of course the institutions are about a lot more.
And so some of the additional things they are about perhaps…
JL
…create a tension with some of the principles and philosophies of the music.
THB
Right. Especially in a liberal arts context where it's not a conservatory, no one is coming to me with elevated technical skills to make a living with, which is extremely freeing. I'm in this weird situation now where increasingly my role is explicitly non-curricular, which has its frustrations at some times, but also has its freedoms. The joke I came up with recently is that I either wanna be the “chaplain or the counselor of the creative weird,” and that's my primary allegiance. And right now I do that working at the institution of Dartmouth College, but my job is just when I find folks—whatever the context is—who are interested in exploring the creative weird of any genre or discipline, or just understanding that what they want to do creatively or spiritually or aesthetically doesn't seem to fit into the overarching goals and priorities and structures of the society we're within, is to help them find ways to do that.
For me, that feels like one of the reasons why so much great arts has—not exclusively come from—but so much great art has come from disenfranchised communities. I think one of the artists' roles is to imagine other structures that might make more sense than what we are presented with currently and the less they feel committed to be part of the dominant structure, the more creative and I think the more interesting those re-manifestations might be. But that also comes from people who might have emerged from the most privileged parts of that dominant structure. For me right now, it just feels like an interesting space—just for the students that feel like they want to explore something different—it's nice to be there for them.
There are some overarching philosophies and practices that I think I got directly from my mentors and I'm very happy to try to pass on of certain approaches to music-making and ways to think about collectivity and collaboration and, you know, creativity. And I think increasingly it feels not very genre-specific. I think so much traditional pedagogy is good, like I'm really happy when my students know how to play their scales. That makes it much easier for me to teach the shit I want to teach.
I've just never been as attracted to or skilled at teaching people their scales. I think I'm a little better at drawing out something inside of them that might be looking for something different, if that makes sense. So as long as I can keep doing that, I find teaching to be a deeply rewarding pastime, you know? Pastime, education, profession, I don't know which ever one of those it is.
(both laugh)
JL
Yeah. That spirit and strength to be able to follow the vision of necessity and fix the gaps you see in the world. That's a very, very tough thing to find the confidence to do without somebody who has been there to guide the way. And I'm sure that we both feel this way, but encountering those specific... “weirdos” for lack of a better term—the fact that they simply exist just proves the point that there are other ways that you can be a musician that are based on your own intuition and the way that you work out the limitations of the culture that we see, regardless of where you come from.
THB
Exactly.
It's interesting, I had a student come to me recently and, you know, she was about to graduate. So she has all of the weight of the future on her shoulders and is trying to figure out if she can be an artist and really do it. And so she asked me, “are you happy?” Which is sort of like, “Woah! That's actually a very heavy question!”
JL
It is, yeah. (laughs)
THB
It was, but it was great! I'm glad she asked! And I thought about it and I was like, “you know, I am happy, but one cannot necessarily control happiness because that is very externally affected.” But I can absolutely promise that pursuing this creative practice—pursuing something in the arts and music and sound for reasons other than immediate fame or commercial gain—has given me a practice that has helped me figure out my life and get through it with a consistent philosophy and spiritual grounding that has saved me from some of the stresses I've seen my peers and others go through. And so, you know, one cannot promise happiness 'cause one cannot know what is gonna happen, but some of the deepest joys and contentments I've found have come from this practice. And so in that sense, I can say yes. I feel like as long as I'm not telling someone they can make a—you know—a comfortable living from it or make a lot of money—and sometimes that's a much better question. Like, I can absolutely promise as a teacher that I do not regret having made music such an important part of my life and that I feel like that is something that has helped me just beyond measure just navigate the day to day. But as long as that's the criteria… (laughs) …I can support it entirely.
I thought about this a lot because I'm really allergic to social media. I just really struggle with that and with the interfacing of technological platforms. I'm lucky enough now to make music from the position of a career that was mostly developed before the necessity of social media. There was definitely an encouragement to do self publicity and promotion when I was coming up. These were the early days of online publicity. I had my MySpace page, I had my website, I did all those, I did my email list. But it's gotten so much deeper now since then where it's really your primary means of finding an audience or engaging with an audience or finding a presenter or finding anyone to support your work. And I don't know if I would have wanted to do that. You know, I mean, either I might've made the choice earlier to really keep music as something for myself, but not to try to commodify it so much. Pursue a practice where there wasn't such a pressure to engage in that type of publicity.
So I feel, again, it's hard with students when I acknowledge that that's, in some ways, such a reality. I don't wanna infect my students with my luddite pretensions when I know that, if they want to be working musicians, they need to get their work out there. And that is the way you need to get your work out there right now.
So I don't know if I would have done it, but also one would hope someone 20-plus years younger than me has a different relationship to technology than I do—for better or for worse—at least more fluent with it so that it might be less of a misery for them.
JL
Definitely, definitely. I think for a lot of us, we see a lot of people that feel that social media is the primary means of building community, which is a very difficult sort of foundation to build relationships with other people. And sometimes it works out great, like I really do feel glad that I'm able to connect with people halfway across the world, just off of pure, mutual interest in things.
At the same time, there's a lack of inherent goodwill that sometimes just isn’t a worry when you're meeting people in person. You know, you bump shoulders with somebody at a show and get a conversation going—that seems to be a much more durable way of building a relationship. It points to a broader question of just what type of kind of community do you want to be a part of and how is that community mediated—through social media or I mean, even specific venues that you might show up to or different social spaces.
THB
No, absolutely, and I think that's where I also want to be careful. I mean, that's an interesting challenge for me as a teacher. It's funny, I could have had some of my mentors say, "Once you get signed to a record label, then, you know, you'll do your first European tour." Well, those don't exist anymore. And even now I might say, “yeah, once you put your own record out,” you're like, “no, no, why would we put a record out?” Like, you know what I mean? (laughs)
It is funny knowing there's some advice that easily transcends generations and some that doesn't. I think it's interesting, particularly around the sort of technological and business side of it—the “practical” side of it—seems constantly changing. But then the beautiful thing is that across generations, some core musical principles still connect. So, you know, that's why it's fun having projects where I've had people in their twenties and people in their eighties in the same band. There's something so beautiful about that. We can all still connect easier through the music than we could through any other means, in any other context, in any other conversation, in any other point of connection. And that, again, I feel that demonstrates the inherent power and beauty of music. It helps me prioritize what to focus on when I teach in some ways: trusting that much of my knowledge might become immediately obsolete and that's okay. And you do not feel the need to share the parts of it that are obsolete, but you keep connecting back to the things that have seemed to have been proven timeless over generations before when I had gotten involved, you know what I mean?
JL
Absolutely. Well, and that should give us all a sense of peace, I think, because all of the work that we put into the total experience of being a musician, it can all fall apart, but there's still that really rich and powerful middle space between everybody as individuals where—even though I'm inclined to feel it's maybe a bit naive or utopian—you make sound together and something happens that transcends the need to sell yourself or the need to feel like you're a part of a hierarchy, because you're not: you're just making sound together.
THB
Exactly, exactly, yeah.
So we'll see, and again, if nothing else, there's a nice, interesting thing about being up here in Vermont. I don't know what I would call it, but I’ve been practicing improvising more often. I improvise more, often for myself. Like, I feel for years, you know, one's practice was different than one's performance, right? Where my practice would be, I'd be doing the rudiments and the scales and running the tunes we might be playing, but I didn't spend as much time practicing quote-unquote “improvisation” because I felt so much that improvising—so much of the joy I took out of improvising—was around the communication with other people. Now that I'm up here—I get to hear less music, I play with people less often—I actually find that what is most rewarding in my practice is actually improvising for myself, playing as a way of keeping myself interested. And there's actually something very freeing about that. If nothing else, if I can keep playing the way that I like, I can find a moment of joy. Just like taking a beautiful walk, I can find that moment of joy completely self-sufficiently. I can find that moment of joy of making sound on my instrument and then that joy can be heightened if I'm sharing it with somebody. That's extraordinary.
But I don't need to depend on anyone else for that moment of joy, and in some ways that allows me, even though that sounds very self-centered in a way, it actually allows me to push less and sort of accept those beautiful moments more and then have more control over them for myself. And so then I feel like I'm not desperate for someone else's thing, where I'm gonna try to hunt for the gig or hunt for the thing or whatever, you know what I mean?
JL
Absolutely. I mean, the inherent joy of doing things is always a good basis for any type of human activity somehow! (laughs)
THB
It is, it really is. (laughs)
JL
Don't know why you don't hear people say that more often. (both laughing)
Well, I think the last question that I wanna ask is just, you know, in light of all of this and where you're at in your life, what are the things that you hope to yet accomplish as a musician and as a teacher? If there is indeed anything, that is! I don't know, maybe you've completely accepted where you're at—I wouldn’t blame you! (laughs)
THB
Honestly, yeah, it's interesting. I think it really comes down to a desire to just maintain a level of stability, sustainability and contentment, you know? Like, I think it's been rare. I feel like I'm in a space right now that feels dangerously good. (laughs)
Good in a way that I'm not pushing for. Just enough is happening for me to feel really engaged and really happy and I'm not having to push, and it's with people I really care about, and I’m able to prioritize the things I care about. However, I do wonder if that dries up, if I'm coasting towards the bottom of a hill as opposed to being carried by the wind, if that makes sense.
JL
Yeah, definitely.
THB
If I'm coasting down, I hope I can let it coast down without feeling like I need to turn on the engine again. Let's put it that way. I hope that I can keep this coast going for as long as I stay on this planet making sound. If I don't, I hope I can rebalance in a way that continues to feel stable and sustainable.
I feel that for the first 20 plus years of my professional career, I always had an idea of what my next big project was gonna be, or the next project on the horizon. Also, I was working for Anthony Braxton, so Braxton had, literally 3000 pages written up what the next big projects will be for the next several millennia. There was always this sense of “going for the next big thing.” I'm so glad I did that and that I learned things, I produced things, I got to be involved with projects because of that approach that enriched my life. So much so that I actually feel quite content with that kind of ambition being in the past right now. Right now it's more like, what can I do to keep finding those moments of joy with people that I love and sharing it in such a way that might help out some others as well. And just, that feels like enough right now. I mean, again, I'm sure some other things will start itching at different points and I want to honor those itches as they come, but right now, I'm feeling pretty good.
JL
An awesome answer, man. (laughing)
Being in touch with that—that's larger than being a musician, obviously. And I hope that no matter what you do, that other musicians ask these same questions and cultivate a sense of confidence in that intuition. That you can really be in control of what your goal is even with accepting a sense of goallessness as the point.
THB
I mean, it could either be intuition or absolute self delusion, but right now, it's working for me okay. And so let's see what this is. (laughs)
JL
Good! Well, if it ends up being delusion, I'll kick your ass in 10 years and make you do something. (both laughing)
THB
Okay, right on, I appreciate that!
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Empty Stage Journal & Records
Empty Stage Journal & Records
Chicago, Illinois