Jack Langdon & Taylor Ho Bynum - "Precision Valley"
Windsor, VT
track one: “Up to the Sky” [23:48]
track two: “Down to the Earth” [26:44]
Organist Jack Langdon and cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum live in two small, Vermont towns separated by thirty miles and connected by the flow of the Connecticut River. “Precision Valley” is a culmination of their work together as a duo, formed as a musical respite during the isolation and quiet of 2020. Their restless, spiritual musings navigate in and out of wistful melodicism, flurries of pointilist jabs, guttural fanfares, and half-familiar chorales. The duo expand the brass and organ lexicon—taking this traditional genre, twisting and reshaping it through the craft of two idiosyncratic improvisers. This album was recorded on location at the Thetford Hill Church in Thetford, Vermont.
Jack Langdon (b.1994, Keyeser, Wisconsin) is an organist, video artist, and writer.
Jack creates work that disintegrates commonplace sounds, images, and narratives—reassembling them in strange constructions. His music is gentle and expansive, drawing inspiration from the landscape and folk modernisms of the American Midwest.
Jack is an organist, whose approach to performance investigates the unique qualities of individual organs—utilizing drones, extended techniques, and electronic augmentations. Jack is a proponent of contemporary organ music and regularly creates new work in collaboration with other performers, composers, and artists.
Jack currently lives in Chicago, Illinois - formerly lived in East Thetford, Vermont.
Jack is a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.
Taylor Ho Bynum (b.1975) 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. While currently taking a break from leading an active band, Bynum continues to perform 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). Other ongoing projects include Tomas Fujiwara’s Triple Double and Shizuko, Jim Hobbs & the Fully Celebrated Orchestra, Bill Lowe’s Signifyin’ Natives, Bill Cole’s Untempered Ensemble, and Mali Obomsawin’s Sweet Tooth Sextet.