The Henry Threadgill kowtowing and supplication thread

All classic, motherfucker, no dud!

If you can find 'em, the Sextette recordings on Novus are pretty great sall-group acoustic stuff. If you can't, email me (they're out of print) and I bet we can work something out.

It should be easy enough to find stuff by Air and New Air - most of it was on Black Saint, and they keep stuff in print. Also, the 2001 albums, "Every Mouth's a Book" and "Up Jumped the Two Lips" are well worth seeking out. And should be pretty easy to find.

But I've never heard a bad HT record, and the Air albums are good too.

More albums, please!

(I suspect the best one is the one you heard first.)

Warhorse vs. Chestnut deathmatch! One of the most venerable jazz standards you could ask for gets the AACM's famous 'Ancient to the Future' treatment. I've tried writing more, but it descends immediately even further into cliche. Listen instead.

http://s39.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0K0WJOC8YX89M3OPX4GL662HKK

And now for an original. The lineup on here is flute, acoustic guitar, tuba, oud, drums and cello. Jazz? Easy listening? Chamber music from Bizarro Earth? I'm gonna settle for "fuckin' great!"

http://s37.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1EIM7YDNO3G7L0HLGWWDKZBKDR

Full on siamese twin jazz thrash assault! Some people consider the guitars to be a bit shreddy in the circus. Don't hear it myself, but it is pretty fast distorted and technical. Closer to Prime Time than Yellowjackets on the fusion scale, though.

http://s37.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1H1C7S3YOY0RP2WRHYF2LMLC20

Some throwback shit to when jazz was dance music. Dig the pizzicato cello and call & response horns! I'd like this to be the first dance at my wedding reception.

http://s37.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1S6DNI01WSMH624OH55HNIZ1SR

Alright, if this much doesn't hook you, I'm just going to have to concede that our ears are wired differently.

In January 1972, the AACM put on a series of shows at University of Chicago's Mandel Hall. This was the "welcome home" for the Art Ensemble, but quite a few other groups played over two-three days. Fred Anderson sextet, which at that time had Doug Ewart and Steve Colson on piano and wsg George Lewis, Muhal's sextet with Threadgill, Hopkins & McCall, Kalaparusha McIntyre. These are the ones I remember--there were impromptu sets going on all around the U-C area. Fast forward two or three months--handbills on U-of-I-Chicago campus say a new trio--Hopkins, McCall, Threadgill--is playing today in the student center. We go down and I talk with McCall for a few minutes. (I had approached him at the Mandel concerts and regularly went to see the Muhal sextet). Steve knew I ran the record co-op at UIC, so he asked if we had any recording decks--they didn't bring one (and 72 was before there were any econommical mobile decks). By luck I had a 2-track deck upstairs--we got everything hooked up and made a crude recording, which Steve took and promised to dub me a copy.

Henry played the Hubcaphone along with flute and alto. Played an incarnation of his Joplin rag suite and a half dozen other compositions. I did an interview--and asked whether they had a name for the group. They looked at each other & Henry said "we're all Air signs, so we're calling ourselves Air." I thanked them & gave Steve my info so I could get a copy of the tape.

Steve wound up going to France that summer with Braxton, but we stayed in touch. I never did get a copy of the tape, but I got drum lessons from McCall (which wound up being us listening to new stuff I'd get in through the coop: Sunny Murray, Milford Graves, Clifford Jarvis, Claude Delcloo and him showing me stuff that I could never get in a million years) and I wound up with a friend that I still miss.

Threadgill, George Lewis, and Anthony Braxton were all the most blindingly brilliant yet engaging and interesting musicians. the Zooid "Tulips" is the first thing I've bought by HT in a long while, but it is surely amazing. I think Air Lore and Air Mail are my favorite Air recordings.

Oh, and somewhere I have a cassette Steve gave me of the Creative Construction Company, a group he was in with Braxton and Muhal--with other Chicago avants Leo (pre-Wadada) Smith and Leroy Jenkins. If I remember correctly, Muhal's high-school buddy Richard Davis was on bass.

Sweet home Chicago.

It's been six years since he put out a new record. I want more, now!

Actually there was that self-released vinyl-only thing he did! Which he sells for like $40!!

ANyone heard it?

Wait! What? Where! GIMME

hmm .. actually on closer inspection, it may not be self-released; came out on some label called 'hardedge' (ugh):

http://www.hardedge.tv/hardedge001.html

Pretty sure the way-overpriced recent limited edition record is released by his manager. If not, I've at least seen it for sale on Ebay, again, by his manager.

Here's an idea--let the onld records that are rare be the rare ones. Get new ones out to new fans, and then they'll seek out the old ones.

I am so totally ansty for more. Lately, my favorite's been "Carry the Day," but I've yet to hear a few.

I still haven't got this. I WANT MORE!

I note with some dismay that Henry Threadgill is not playing Coachella this year.

Henry is the classickest of the classic. (sic)

<a href=http://17greenbuicks.blogspot.com/>;Hot shit!</a> (not just Threadgill/Air, either.)

oh fer...

http://17greenbuicks.blogspot.com/

I say "Too Much Sugar for a Dime."

V hard to go wrong with the ensemble he's assembled...only realizing now how deep I gotta go into the whole AACM deal.

Come back Henry, I miss you.

That's Protestant whisky!

Nice article in today's Times:

Master of the Mutable, in an Idiom All His Own

With this great news tucked inside: "Its [“This Brings Us To, Vol. 1”] arrival precedes a boxed set due out on Mosaic early next year comprising Mr. Threadgill’s major-label output of the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s."

Woo-hoo!

Phil has been tweeting about the current Black Saint/Soul Note box set (which I didn't know existed until he talked about it) and I'm both jealous he's hearing it and excited I will be soon. Also, a whole ton of stuff - I think all of the Black Saint set - is on iTunes if people are unfamiliar with Threadgill's excellence.

Pre-orders are being taken:

The Complete Novus/Columbia Recordings

New Zooid out on Pi

Listening to Rag, Bush and All this morning and, despite hearing it dozens of times, it sounds revelatory. Love this man's music to pieces.

Happy Birthday Henry!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOmFRXeFcvk

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CgWPIkKXEAA8zJR.jpg

http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/henry-threadgill

so dope

I have been getting into some of his brilliant 80's/90's output (Spirit Of Nuff, Rag Bush and All, You Know The Number), love this guy.

I have been having a Threadgill binge for days now, there is way too much good stuff to single out one particular album - but I'd say You Know The Number and Too Much Sugar for a Dime are just str8 classics.

Not sure if this autobiography got discussed on the rolling jazz thread or something, sounds awesome:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/626186/easily-slip-into-another-world-by-henry-threadgill-and-brent-hayes-edwards/

The book was great, what a really smart, restlessly creative guy. The accounts of growing up in Chicago (both the city and the jazz scene), plus his time in Vietnam, were invaluable.

I’m really looking forward to reading it.

Here is a review of the book.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/12/21/ever-new-sound-worlds-henry-threadgill/

Several ensembles will be playing his music at Big Ears but my understanding is that Threadgill himself doesn’t play any more. At least that was the case when I saw Very Very Circus play in Brooklyn last year.

I haven't heard that he's retired from playing, but he's had some health issues, and his most recent album was written explicitly for other people to perform. Glad I got to see Zooid once at the Jazz Gallery (they were working out the material that eventually wound up on Poof) before leaving the East Coast.

I saw him play last month. He was in band leader mode, but he was onstage and played. Though I’m sure he would rather just get payed to write commissioned pieces at this point.

I saw him play last month. He was in band leader mode, but he was onstage and played. Though I’m sure he would rather just get payed to write commissioned pieces at this point.

It looks like he will be playing in some ensembles and his music will be performed without him at Big Ears. I’m going to go this year, so I guess I’ll let you know in a couple of months.

And I’m seeing Marty Ehrlich tonight at the Metropolitan Opera (he’s in the jazz band in The Life and Times of MalcolmX, along with Amir ElSaffar, JD Parran, Mark Helias, and Jeff “Tain” Watts)