Henry Threadgill is one of those artists whose work is a landscape. But, this is terrain viewed from the high ground. One sees the hills, valleys, mountains and streams. It is a panorama, with detail so rich that the music continuously unfolds. It is its own world and in it one discovers sights and sounds that are familiar but have never been encountered in these settings. If Threadgill walked through the desert he would emerge with water cupped in one hand and sand in the other, neither having run through his fin-gers. Such is Henry’s control of the elements of form.
By David Greenberger
ZOOID: Henry Threadgill: alto sax and flute; Liberty Ellman: acoustic guitar; Tarik Benbrahim: oud; Jose Davila: tuba; Dana Leong: cello; Dafnis Prieto: drums.
Make A Move: Henry Threadgill: alto sax and flute; Brandon Ross: guitars; Bryan Carrott: vibes and marimba; Stomu Takeishi: bass; Dafnis Prieto: drums
their primary focus in Make a Move is to make their stringed instruments scream unto the heavens. Filling out the group is , , and the only holdover from Zoo-Id, .
Henry Threadgill's importance to modern jazz cannot be denied, as there are few composers who possess such a distinguishable methodology to music in general. The artist along with a select few is inadvertently signaling in a new golden age of jazz-based fundamentals and thought processes, as this unfolding saga continually ascends to loftier heights. Glenn Astarita - All About Jazz
For what it's worth, a zooid is "an organic cell capable of spontaneous movement independent of the parent organism."
Music
should go right through you, leave some of itself inside you, and take some of
you with it when it leaves.
- Henry Threadgill
[Source:
Zen Guitar]
Threadgill's contemporary music uses classical harmonies, gospel voicings and the earliest jazz principle, of collective improvisation; his group is tightly drilled yet at ease, and he plays no more solos than anyone else. He brings the AACM's virtue of using the history of the music as a reference.
All
of which makes you wonder what Threadgill's work ought to be called. His relationship
to jazz is clear enough. It's part of his heritage, of course, and he did embrace
at least one variety of it. He was strongly influenced by Muhal Richard Abrams
and his Chicago-based Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, which
pioneered exactly the blend of avant-garde jazz and abstract 20th century classical
styles that Threadgill exemplifies in his work with Air.
But it's also fair
to say that jazz is something he was channeled into
