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David Bindman

David Bindman is a saxophonist, composer, and bandleader living in Brooklyn, NY. He has performed and recorded with Wadada Leo Smith, Talking Drums, Kevin Norton, Ehran Elisha, Anthony Braxton, Adam Lane, and many others. He collaborated with poet Tyrone Henderson and visual artist Quimetta Perle on the multi-media pieces The Madman and Strawman Dance, and co-led the Brooklyn Sax Quartet with Fred Ho for a decade, recording The Way of the Saxophone (Innova, 2001) and Far Side of Here (Omnitone, 2005). In 2012 David released his ensemble’s double CD Sunset Park Polyphony. He is currently collaborating with visual artist Malin Abrahamsson on “The Dream Space Continuum,” a work involving music and abstract animation.

Longer Bio

David began playing violin at five, at ten switched to alto sax, then played drums. Early on he listened to Hot Clarinets, a record given to him by his grandmother, to John Coltrane's albums Traneing In and Crescent, and to the musicians he saw perform in his hometown of Englewood, NJ, including Dizzy Gillespie. As a high school student living in Vermont, David began improvising and composing. He formed an ensemble with drummer Ben Wittman and pianist Jim Sugarman. During this time he studied with saxophonist Stephen Horenstein, took part in trumpeter Bill Dixon's class Bennington College, and performed with trumpeter Arthur Brooks' ensemble.

As an undergraduate at Wesleyan University in the early 1980s, David studied with saxophonist Bill Barron and trombonist Bill Lowe, and with master artists in Wesleyan's World Music Department. He was a member of Talking Drums, led by Ghanaian master drummers/Wesleyan faculty members Abraham Adzenyah and Freeman Donkor. Talking Drums toured the US and released Some Day Catch Some Day Down in 1987 (Shanachie, reissued on Innova in 2011). David was also part of the collective quartet JUBA, with bassist Wes Brown, drummer royal hartigan, and Bill Lowe, and performed with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith's New Dalta Ahkri.

Living in New York since 1987, David has been involved with numerous performances and recordings, as both sideman and leader, and collaborative projects. In the early 1990s he collaborated with poet Tyrone Henderson and visual artist Quimetta Perle on the multimedia works The Madman and Strawman Dance, with performances at P.S. 122, the Nuyorican Poets Café, and the Green Room, Manchester, UK; the Strawman Dance CD was released in 1994 (Konnex). During the 90s David also formed his trio with Kevin Norton and Joe Fonda (Imaginings CIMP, 1997) and co-founded the Brooklyn Sax Quartet with Fred Ho. The Brooklyn Sax Quartet released two CDs, The Way of the Saxophone (Innova, 2001) and Far Side of Here (Omnitone, 2005), and toured the western US and Canada. In 2003 the BSQ performed David 's arrangement of Hector Berlioz's Romeo and Juliet live on WNYC's Soundcheck and at Joe's Pub at the Public Theater.

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26
Album Review

David Bindman Sextet: Ten Billion Versions of Reality

Read "Ten Billion Versions of Reality" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


Saxophonist David Bindman reconvenes the ensemble that created Sunset Park Polyphony (Self Produced, 2012) for the eclectic Ten Billion Versions of Reality. Bindman had spent parts of two recent years in the upstate New York town of Cambridge, developing a suite that is meant to weave together varying perspectives across multiple sound surfaces. The title, in part, refers to emotions and the sense of awareness shared by individuals and across species.Bindman has worked with Wadada Leo Smith and ...

75
Album Review

David Bindman Ensemble: Sunset Park Polyphony

Read "Sunset Park Polyphony" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


Jazz is at the forefront of the cultural renewal taking place in Brooklyn, and saxophonist David Bindman has been a quiet but leading force in that movement. Sunset Park Polyphony brings together members of the stellar quartet that last recorded under the leadership of percussionist Royal Hartigan on Blood Drum Spirit: Royal Hartigan Ensemble Live in China (Innova, 2008), with Bindman extending the original group to a sextet with the addition of the brilliant trombonist Reut Regev and trumpeter Frank ...

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Recording

David Bindman Ensemble Sunset Park Polyphony CD release March 1

David Bindman Ensemble Sunset Park Polyphony CD release March 1

Source: David Bindman

On March 1, 2012, saxophonist/composer David Bindman unveils his double CD Sunset Park Polyphony, a narrative collection of his original compositions performed by a six- member ensemble. The album's songs and extended compositions explore layers of rhythmic and harmonic complexity and adapt elements from world music traditions, including West African rhythms and Indian raga (modes) and tala (time cycles). Bindman writes of the polyphony in the album/song title, improvisational voices, and compositional forms: “In Sunset Park, Brooklyn, one hears a ...

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