Henry Threadgill

Henry Threadgill
Henry Threadgill
Birth name	Henry Luther Threadgill
Born	February 15, 1944 (age 68)
Origin	Chicago, Illinois, USA
Genres	Jazz; Avant-garde jazz
Occupations	Musician; Bandleader; Composer; Sideman
Instruments	Alto saxophone, Flute
Years active	1960s–present
Notable instruments
	Alto Saxophone

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Henry Threadgill (born February 15, 1944, in Chicago, Illinois) is an American composer, saxophonist and flautist.^[1] Threadgill came to prominence in the 1970s leading ensembles with unusual instrumentation and often incorporating a range of non-jazz genres. Henry Threadgill, aside from being a remarkable alto saxophone player, is one of the most imaginative of jazz composers today. Not long ago Peter Watrous of the New York Times described Threadgill as “perhaps the most important jazz composer of his generation.” Recent concerts in Chicago have led the local critics to speak of him as a revolutionary figure, altering the manner in which jazz itself is going. Said Howard Reich, jazz critic of the Chicago Tribune, “It would be difficult to overestimate Henry Threagill’s role in perpetually altering the meaning of jazz..…He has changed our underlying assumptions of what jazz can and should be.”' - An excerpt from a chapter on Henry Threadgill from And They All Sang (published 2005) by late Pulitzer winning author and disc jockey Studs Terkel – a book about “forty of the greatest and most deeply human musical figures of our time.”

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life and career

Threadgill first performed as a percussionist in his high school marching band before taking up the baritone saxophone and later a large portion of the woodwind instrument family. He soon settled upon the alto saxophone and the flute as his main instruments.

He was one of the original members of the legendary AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) in his hometown of Chicago and worked under the guidance of Muhal Richard Abrams before leaving to tour with a gospel band. In 1967, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, playing with a rock band in Vietnam in 1967 and 1968. He was discharged in 1969.

Upon his return to Chicago he rejoined fellow AACM members Fred Hopkins and Steve McCall, forming a trio which would eventually become the group Air, one of the most celebrated and critically acclaimed avant-garde jazz groups of the 1970s and 1980s. In the meantime, Threadgill had moved to New York City to begin pursuing his own musical visions, which explored musical genres in innovative ways thanks to his daringly unique group collaborations. His first group, X-75, was a nonet consisting of four reed players, four bass players and a vocalist.

[edit] The Sextet/Sextett

In the early 1980s, Threadgill created his first critically acclaimed ensemble as a leader, Henry Threadgill Sextet (actually a septet; he counted the two drummers as a single percussion unit^[2]), which released three LPs on About Time Records. After a hiatus, during which Threadgill formed New Air with Pheeroan akLaff replacing the late Steve McCall on drums, Threadgill re-formed the Henry Threadgill Sextett (with two t's at the end [three in all]) . This group recorded three CDs on the Novus Records label. The six albums the group recorded feature some of Threadgill's most accessible work, notably on the album You Know the Number.

The group's unorthodox instrumentation included two drummers, bass, cello, trumpet and trombone, in addition to Threadgill's alto and flute. Among the players who filled these roles were drummers akLaff, John Betsch, Reggie Nicholson and Newman Baker; bassist Fred Hopkins; cellist Diedre Murray; trumpeters Rasul Siddik and Ted Daniels; cornetist Olu Dara; and trombonists Ray Anderson, Bill Lowe and Craig Harris.

[edit] Very Very Circus and beyond

The CD "Live At Koncepts" captured the Very Very Circus group live during its earliest days, in 1991

During the 1990s, Threadgill pushed the musical boundaries even further with his ensemble Very Very Circus. In addition to Threadgill, the group's core consisted of two tubas, two electric guitars, a trombone or french horn, and drums. With this group he explored more complex and highly structured forms of composition, augmenting the group with everything from latin percussion to French horn to violin to accordion and an array of exotic instruments and vocalists.

Threadgill composed and recorded with other unusual instrumentations, such as a flute quartet (Flute Force Four, a one-time project from 1990); and combinations of four cellos and four acoustic guitars (on Makin' A Move).

By this time Threadgill's place amongst the upper echelon of the avant-garde was secured, so prolific in fact that he was signed by Columbia Records for three albums (a rarity for musicians of his kind). Since the dissolution of Very Very Circus, Threadgill has continued in his iconoclastic ways with ensembles such as Make A Move and Zooid. Zooid, currently a sextet with tuba (Jose Davila), acoustic guitar (Liberty Ellman), cello (Christopher Hoffman), drums (Elliot Kavee) and bass guitar (Stomu Takeishi), has been the primary vehicle for Threadgill's most current compositions throughout the 2000s.