{"title":"Henry Threadgill","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"the-other-one-3","title":"The Other One","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe latest from Pulitzer Prize-winner Henry Threadgill, \u003ci\u003eThe Other One\u003c\/i\u003e, is comprised of a three-movement composition entitled \"Of Valence\" that was the musical component of a large multimedia work performed and recorded live at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn, New York in May, 2022. Written for a 12-piece ensemble - made up of an unusual instrumental combination of three saxophones, violin, viola, two cellos, tuba, percussion, piano and two bassoons - The New York Times described the performance as possessing \"a galvanic sense of swing,\" and \"in lock-step with his every surprise rhythmic feint -- producing an obliquely danceable, straightforwardly joyous Threadgillian energy.\" Downbeat called Threadgill \"probably the most important composer\/improviser around at the moment\" in its review of his prior release, \u003ci\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePoof\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e (Pi 2021). That album featured \u003cstrong\u003eZooid\u003c\/strong\u003e, his main working band for more than two decades and his workshop for developing his unique concept of using prescribed intervallic patterns in composition and group improvisation. That method - which helped the group win the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for music for its release \u003ci\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIn for a Penny, In for a Pound\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e - continues to be used in all of Threadgill's new music, including \"Of Valence.\" Regular members of prior Threadgill ensembles - Jose Davila on tuba, Christopher Hoffman on cello, David Virelles on piano, Craig Weinrib on drums - also take part, helping to bring that inimitable Threadgill sound to the proceedings. The ensemble is further made up of younger acolytes and musicians whose practice straddles that interstice between composed and improvised music. All of the hallmarks of Threadgill's music are here: unpredictable forms, unusual instrumental combinations creating surprising timbres, percolating rhythms, interwoven melodic strains, and masterful interlacing of composition with improvisation. The recording was taken from the second of two performances respectively entitled \"One\" and \"The Other One.\" Threadgill was driven to create this new large work based on his observations of the exodus of people from New York City during the Covid pandemic. In particular, he was struck by the left-behind detritus that littered the sidewalks of his East Village neighborhood and what this reveals about human transience, rampant consumerism, and a disposable society. It encompasses video, projected paintings and photographs, electronics, a pre-recorded choir made up of his own voices, and even Threadgill singing while accompanying himself at the piano. In between all of these elements he recited prose that expressed his own wry and often humorous observations on the effect of technology and its effect on human behavior. The performances were a clear extension to the AACM impulse to break boundaries and be artists in a holistic way, not just in musical expression, a central tenet shared by so many of that organization's titans. \"Of Valence\" is dedicated to the percussionist and polymath Milford Graves, who passed away in 2021. The piece was inspired by Graves' dedicated study of the human heart beat and its application to music. This can be heard in particular in Movement II, where the string trio of Sarah Caswell on violin, Stephanie Griffin on viola and Mariel Roberts on cello, play their parts while listening to a playback of their own heartbeats as recorded previously by a cardiologist. Their individual pulses dictate the tempo at which they play, further highlighting their snaking, contrapuntal weave. Graves's influence can further be observed in the use of transducers hooked up to drummer Weinrib's cymbals, the signal from which are then electronically altered, lending them an other-worldly timbral sheen. Even at the age of 79, 2023 promises to be another banner year for Threadgill. His long-awaited memoir, \u003ci\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEasily Slip Into Another World\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e, will be published by \u003cstrong\u003eAlfred A. Knopf\u003c\/strong\u003e together with the release of \u003ci\u003eThe Other One\u003c\/i\u003e. The book was written in collaboration with \u003cstrong\u003eBrent Hayes Edwards\u003c\/strong\u003e, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where he is also affiliated with the Center for Jazz Studies. His prior books include \u003ci\u003eEpistrophies: Jazz and the Literary Imagination\u003c\/i\u003e (Harvard University Press, 2017), which won the 2018 ASCAP Foundation Virgil Thomson Award for Outstanding Music Criticism as well as the 2019 Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism in Memory of Newton Arvin. Edwards was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2015, and in 2020 he was elected to th\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Pi Recordings","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50490170048843,"sku":"2022179","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/test_0771371e_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727653839"},{"product_id":"this-brings-us-to-volumes-i-ii","title":"This Brings Us To, Volumes I \u0026 II","description":"\u003cp\u003eTo celebrate saxophonist\/flutist \u003cstrong\u003eHenry Threadgill\u003c\/strong\u003e's career retrospective at the 2024 Big Ears Festival, Pi Recordings is proud to release both Volumes I \u0026amp; II of \u003cem\u003eThis Brings Us To\u003c\/em\u003e together in a limited-edition double vinyl set.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFeaturing his long-running band, Zooid, the two volumes were originally released in 2009 and 2010 even though the music was all recorded at a single session. They were his first releases in eight years, longer than any hiatus in his career, a time that allowed for the gestation of what was to become Threadgill's signature intervallic system of composition and group improvisation that ultimately won him a Pulitzer Prize for his work \u003cem\u003eIn for a Penny, In for a Pound\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe original albums were voted the #2 and #5 best releases of the year by The Village Voice Jazz Critics' Poll, about which NPR said \"The jazz world is coming to realize that Threadgill is a true idiosyncratic great.... \u003cem\u003eThis Brings Us To\u003c\/em\u003e staggers and lurches and creates dissonances, and it still brings the mad-scientist funk.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eRemastered for vinyl by Threadgill's long-time guitarist and producer Liberty Ellman and housed in a gatefold sleeve with archival photos of the band, the release focuses attention on an important turning point in the career of one of music's great iconoclastic masters.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Pi Recordings","offers":[{"title":"Black LPx2","offer_id":50545810866507,"sku":"2184888","price":37.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/test_22699080_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1728361800"},{"product_id":"listen-ship-rj","title":"Listen Ship","description":"\u003cp\u003eListen Ship is the latest masterpiece in the ever-expanding sound world of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Henry Threadgill, whom The New York Review of Books described as \"one of American music's great Romantics and a lifelong seeker of the sublime\". The new work is a suite for six acoustic guitars - including individual stylists such as Bill Frisell, Miles Okazaki and Brandon Ross - and two pianos that utilise Threadgill's unique intervallic syntax to illuminate his idiosyncratic vision. The eight string instruments revel in the music's painstaking detail with intricate gestures that miraculously entwine to form a grand statement. The meticulous orchestration highlights all of the usual characteristics of Threadgill's music: unusual forms, unexpected timbres, and slippery counterpoint and rhythms, all shaped by the composer's conducting into a singular experience.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Pi Recordings","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":53299034194251,"sku":"R9032-1826","price":13.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP - Black","offer_id":53299034227019,"sku":"R9032-8227","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/0808713011029_4b24df80-6760-499a-8aa1-8d04f7352cfb.jpg?v=1756817236"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/henry-threadgill.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}