Henry Threadgill

Saxophonist and flutist Henry Threadgill ranks with fellow Chicago natives Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell, and Anthony Braxton among the most distinctive jazz composers to appear during the twentieth century. His work crosses stylistic lines by drawing freely from ragtime, circus marches, classical music, bop, free jazz, reggae, funk, and additional idioms. During the 1970s he belonged to the pioneering experimental trio Air alongside Fred Hopkins and Steve McCall, which produced six albums. From 1982 through 1989 the Henry Threadgill Sextet released six further recordings, among them You Know the Number. Following Too Much Sugar for a Dime in 1993 he established the groups Make a Move and Very Very Circus, both of which contributed to the 1995 album Makin' a Move. With the 2001 Pi Recordings release Everybody's Mouth's a Book he launched the continuing Zooid ensemble and also issued Up Popped the Two Lips. The 2015 album In for a Penny, In for a Pound received a Pulitzer Prize. The octet Ensemble Double Up made its debut with Old Locks and Irregular Verbs in 2016. Threadgill next brought out Double Up, Plays Double Up Plus in 2018 and Zooid's Poof in 2021. Penguin issued his autobiography, Easily Slip Into Another World, in May 2023, while Pi Recordings simultaneously presented The Other One, the concert recording of a twelve-piece ensemble performing a large multimedia piece in Brooklyn the previous year.

Threadgill began playing music in childhood, starting with percussion in marching bands before taking up baritone sax and clarinet. He participated in the AACM from its founding in the early 1960s, working with Joseph Jarman and Roscoe Mitchell and performing in Muhal Richard Abrams's Experimental Band. Between 1965 and 1967 he traveled with gospel singer Jo Jo Morris, after which he served in the military, where he performed with an army rock band. Following his discharge he returned to Chicago, joined a blues band, and renewed his ties with Abrams and the AACM. He later earned a bachelor's degree in music from the American Conservatory of Music and pursued additional study at Governor's State University.

In 1971 he formed the trio Reflection with drummer Steve McCall and bassist Fred Hopkins; four years later the group reconvened as Air and went on to record frequently to widespread praise. Its 1979 album Air Lore offered updated treatments of early jazz pieces such as "King Porter Stomp" and "Buddy Bolden's Blues," anticipating the nostalgic turn jazz would take in the decade that followed. Threadgill relocated to New York in the mid-1970s and began assembling and writing for various ensembles. He increasingly favored unusual instrumentation, employing a cellist in the Sextett (actually a septet) and two tubas in Very Very Circus. In the mid-1990s he secured a brief recording contract with Columbia that yielded two strong albums. Across the 1980s and 1990s his music grew steadily more refined and intricate.

Restless by nature, he continued writing for a succession of first-rate ensembles, each configured differently. Two 2001 Pi Recordings releases demonstrated this approach clearly. Up Popped the Two Lips presented his Zooid group, pairing Threadgill's alto and flute with acoustic guitar, oud, tuba, cello, and drums—an instrumentation atypical for jazz yet capable of agile grooves and swing. Everybody's Mouth's a Book featured the Make a Move band, which combined the leader's horns with vibes, marimba, electric and acoustic guitars, electric bass, and drums—a comparatively conventional lineup that remained no less inventive in conception. A limited-edition live Zooid recording, Pop Start the Tape, Stop, appeared on Hardedge in 2004, and Threadgill also contributed to Billy Bang's Vietnam: Reflections.

Although he continued to perform and rehearse with both Zooid and Make a Move, he did not record with either again until late 2008. Zooid tracked sessions that November, leading to the release of This Brings Us To, Vol. 1 in 2009 and Vol. 2 in 2010. The Mosaic label assembled his Complete Novus & Columbia Recordings in a deluxe limited box set. Make a Move returned to the studio in late 2011, producing Tomorrow Sunny/The Revelry, Spp, issued in June 2013. In December of that year Threadgill, bassist John Lindberg, and drummer Jack DeJohnette joined Wadada Leo Smith's quartet for The Great Lakes Suites sessions, released nearly two years later by TUM.

Zooid reassembled for two days in a Brooklyn studio during May 2014. That August Threadgill performed with DeJohnette's AACM reunion quintet at the Chicago Jazz Festival alongside Roscoe Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams, and Larry Gray; the resulting album, Made in Chicago, appeared on ECM in January 2015. The previous year's Zooid sessions surfaced the following spring as the double-disc In for a Penny, In for a Pound, which received widespread acclaim, led year-end jazz polls worldwide, and earned Threadgill the Pulitzer Prize for Music. The award was conferred in April 2016, the same month his new octet Ensemble Double Up, featuring pianists David Virelles and Jason Moran, debuted with Old Locks and Irregular Verbs. In May he received a Doris Duke Artist Award. Threadgill returned in 2018 with Double Up, Plays Double Up Plus on Pi.

He recorded once more with Zooid for the 2021 album Poof. In addition to Threadgill's alto sax and flute, the quintet included guitarist Liberty Ellman, tubist and trombonist Jose Davila, cellist Christopher Hoffman, and drummer Elliot Humberto Kavee. During 2023 Penguin published his memoir Easily Slip Into Another World, while Pi brought out The Other One. Recorded live in Brooklyn the prior year by a twelve-piece ensemble of horns, reeds, winds, and strings, the album forms part of a large multimedia project and features the three-movement composition "Of Valence," inspired by percussionist Milford Graves's incorporation of the human heartbeat into his music.