Pulitzer-winning composer, saxophonist, and flutist Henry Threadgill returns with his quintet, Zooid, to perform music from their new album, Cut You Where You Was, recently released on Pi Recordings.
The performance marks the 20th anniversary of Threadgill’s 2016 Pulitzer Prize for In for a Penny, In for a Pound — an album composed for Zooid which premiered at Roulette in 2014.
Henry Threadgill flute, bass flute, and alto saxophone
Christopher Hoffman cello
Liberty Ellman acoustic guitar
Jose Davila trombone and tuba
Elliot Kavee drums
“Sweet-and-sour, jazz-tango-Middle-Eastern-funk [from] one of our great composers.” –The New York Times
“One of jazz’s most admired innovators since the ’70s and a pillar of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, multi-instrumentalist Henry Threadgill takes the stage with his slinky, utterly distinctive, and disarmingly engaging acoustic sextet, Zooid.” –The New Yorker
This performance will not be recorded.
“Unconventional” describes not just Henry Threadgill’s music, but his life.
Born in Chicago in 1944, Henry grew up on the South Side, where parade bands and the blues filled the air. He played percussion, then clarinet in the Englewood High School band, but switched to sax at 16. Idolizing Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and Lester Young, he adored Fritz Reiner’s Chicago Symphony and avant-classical composers like Luciano Berio. He was 17 when he joined the Muhal Richard Abrams’ Experimental Band, which later expanded into the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM); there he found like-minded musical explorers.
It was in the East Village—long a seedy, tumultuous haven for outsiders of all types—that Henry Threadgill launched the unconventional concepts that led to his Pulitzer-winning art. AIR (Artists In Residence), his 1970s trio, reimagined ragtime without the piano—a lot like dropping the electric guitar from rock. His 1980s Sextett, pairing complex compositions and dynamic soloists, combined heft and agility, and birthed the “little big band” sound. In the 1990s, Very Very Circus stepped deeper into unorthodoxy, with two electric guitars, two tubas, a trombone/French horn, drums, Henry’s alto sax and flute, and frequent add-ons. With Make A Move, a fluid lineup mixing French horn, tubas, electric and acoustic guitars, and cello, he began exploring the approaches to composing and improvising that led to Zooid. From 2000 on, Zooid became his primary vehicle.
As a composer and improviser, Henry sees artistic process and product as inseparable, the essence of jazz. Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus strove toward the same goal. Rooted in that history, Henry’s solutions have taken radical new tacks. For Zooid, the Pulitzer committee explained, “A set of three note intervals assigned to each player…serves as the starting point for improvisation.” Zooid’s musicians make in-the-moment decisions about structure, shaping the work-in-process. The unpredictable results are jazz’s “sound of surprise” updated for the 21st century.
After decades of probing music, cult status, and critical acclaim, Threadgill’s Pulitzer Prize caps growing high-culture recognition: 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award; 2015 Doris Duke Impact Award; 2008 United States Artist Fellowship; 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship. He is especially proud of being the first black non-classical musician to get a Copland House Residency Award. In July 2016, the annual Leadership Conference of the Vietnam Veterans of America honored him with their Excellence in the Arts award—a very special moment for the only Vietnam veteran ever awarded a Pulitzer for music.
