Henry Threadgill was born on February 15, 1944. He is an American composer, saxophonist, and flautist. He became well-known in the 1970s for leading musical groups that played jazz but used uncommon instruments and often included music from other styles. He has performed and recorded with many ensembles, including Air, Aggregation Orb, Make a Move, the seven-piece Henry Threadgill Sextett, the twenty-piece Society Situation Dance Band, Very Very Circus, X-75, and Zooid.

In 2016, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his album In for a Penny, In for a Pound. The album first performed at Roulette Intermedium on December 4, 2014.

In 2023, he published his autobiography, written with Brent Hayes Edwards, titled Easily Slip into Another World: A Life in Music. The book was listed as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and was named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, NPR, and The New Yorker.

Career

Henry Threadgill began his musical career as a percussionist in his high school marching band. Later, he played the baritone saxophone, alto saxophone, and flute. He studied at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, focusing on piano, flute, and composition. He learned piano from Gail Quillman and composition from Stella Roberts. He was part of the Experimental Band, an early group that led to the formation of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in Chicago. He worked with Muhal Richard Abrams before joining a gospel band on tour. In 1967, he joined the U.S. Army and played with a rock band in Vietnam during 1967 and 1968. He left the Army in 1969.

After returning to Chicago, Threadgill joined AACM members Fred Hopkins (bassist) and Steve McCall (drummer) in a trio that later became the group Air. He moved to New York City and formed his first group, X-75, which was a nonet made up of four reed players, four bass players, and a vocalist.

In the early 1980s, Threadgill created his first widely praised ensemble, the Henry Threadgill Sextet (which actually had seven members, as he counted the two drummers as one unit). The group released three albums on About Time Records. After a break, he formed New Air with Pheeroan akLaff, replacing Steve McCall on drums, and later reformed the Henry Threadgill Sextett (with two t’s at the end). The six albums recorded by this group include some of Threadgill’s most accessible music, especially the album You Know the Number. The group used unusual instruments, including two drummers, double bass, cello, trumpet, trombone, and Threadgill’s alto saxophone and flute. Members included drummers akLaff, John Betsch, Reggie Nicholson, and Newman Baker; bassist Fred Hopkins; cellist Diedre Murray; trumpeters Rasul Siddik and Ted Daniels; cornetist Olu Dara; and trombonists Ray Anderson, Frank Lacy, Bill Lowe, and Craig Harris.

In the 1990s, Threadgill expanded his musical style further with his ensemble Very Very Circus. The group included two tubas, two electric guitars, a trombone or French horn, and drums. He added Latin percussion, French horn, violin, accordion, vocalists, and unusual instruments to the group’s arrangements. He also composed with other unique ensembles, such as a flute quartet called Flute Force Four (a one-time project from 1990) and a group with four cellos and four acoustic guitars (Makin’ a Move).

Threadgill signed with Columbia Records for three albums. After Very Very Circus ended, he continued to explore new musical ideas with groups like Make a Move and Zooid. Zooid, currently a sextet with tuba (Jose Davila), acoustic guitar (Liberty Ellman), cello (Christopher Hoffman), drums (Elliot Kavee), and bass guitar (Stomu Takeishi), has been the main group for Threadgill’s compositions in the 2000s.

In 2018, Threadgill composed the string quartet Sixfivetwo for the Kronos Quartet, which they recorded as part of their Fifty for the Future project.

Awards and honors

In 2016, Threadgill’s composition In for a Penny, In for a Pound was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music.

In July 2016, he received the Vietnam Veterans of America Excellence in the Arts Award at the VVA National Leadership Conference in Tucson.

The pieces “Run Silent, Run Deep, Run Loud, Run High” (conducted by Hale Smith) and “Mix for Orchestra” (conducted by Dennis Russell Davies) were both first performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1987 and 1993, respectively. He received commissions from Mordine & Company in 1971 and 1989, from Carnegie Hall for “Quintet for Strings and Woodwinds” in 1983 and 1985, from the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1985, from Bang on a Can All-Stars in 1995, from the Miller Theatre at Columbia University for “Peroxide” in 2003, from the Talujon Percussion Ensemble in 2008, and from the Junge Philharmonie Salzburg Orchestra for “Fly Fliegen Volar” in 2007. The piece “Mc Guffins” was first performed with Zooid at the Biennale Festival in Italy in 2004.

In May 2020, he was given an honorary doctor of music degree by the University of Pennsylvania.

In October 2020, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) named Threadgill as one of four recipients of the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships. The award was celebrated in an online concert and show on April 22, 2021. It recognizes individuals for their lifetime achievements in jazz. The other 2021 recipients were Terri Lyne Carrington, Albert “Tootie” Heath, and Phil Schaap.

In 2024, he received a PEN Oakland–Josephine Miles Award for Easily Slip Into Another World: A Life in Music, coauthored with Brent Hayes Edwards.

Personal life

Threadgill was born in Chicago. He learned to play the piano, flute, and compose music at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago and at Governors State University in University Park, Illinois. He was part of the US Army Concert Band and served in Vietnam. He is married to Senti Toy, a recording artist and ethnomusicologist, also known as Sentienla Toy Threadgill.

Discography

• 1975: Air Song (Why Not)
• 1976: Air Raid (Why Not)
• 1977: Live Air (Black Saint)
• 1977: Air Time (Nessa)
• 1978: Open Air Suit (Arista/Novus)
• 1978: Montreux Suisse (Arista/Novus)
• 1979: Air Lore (Arista/Novus)
• 1980: Air Mail (Black Saint)
• 1982: 80° Below '82 (Antilles)
• 1983: Live at Montreal International Jazz Festival (as New Air) (Black Saint)
• 1986: Air Show No. 1 (as New Air with Cassandra Wilson) (Black Saint)

• 1979: X-75 Volume 1 (Arista/Novus)

Henry Threadgill Sextet

• 1982: When Was That? (About Time)
• 1983: Just the Facts and Pass the Bucket (About Time)
• 1984: Subject to Change (About Time)
• 1987: You Know the Number (Arista/Novus)
• 1988: Easily Slip Into Another World (Arista/Novus)
• 1989: Rag, Bush and All (Arista/Novus)

Society Situation Dance Band

• 1988: Live in Hamburg

• 1990: Spirit of Nuff…Nuff (Black Saint)
• 1991: Live at Koncepts (Taylor Made)
• 1993: Too Much Sugar for a Dime (Axiom)
• 1993: Song Out of My Trees (Black Saint)
• 1994: Carry the Day (Columbia)
• 1995: Makin' a Move (Columbia)

• 1996: Where's Your Cup? (Columbia)
• 2001: Everybodys Mouth's a Book (Pi)

• 2001: Up Popped the Two Lips (Pi)
• 2005: Pop Start the Tape, StoP (Hardedge)
• 2009: This Brings Us to Volume 1 (Pi)
• 2010: This Brings Us to Volume 2 (Pi)
• 2012: Tomorrow Sunny / The Revelry, Spp (Pi)
• 2015: In for a Penny, In for a Pound (Pi)
• 2021: Poof (Pi)

• 2016: Old Locks and Irregular Verbs (Pi)
• 2018: Double Up, Plays Double Up Plus (Pi)

• 2018: Dirt… And More Dirt (Pi)

Henry Threadgill Ensemble

• 2023: The Other One (Pi)

With Muhal Richard Abrams

• Young at Heart/Wise in Time (1969)
• 1-OQA+19 (1977)

• For Trio (Arista, 1978)

• Morning Prayer (Whynot, 1976)

• Nonaah (Nessa, 1977)
• L-R-G / The Maze / S II Examples (Nessa, 1978)

• Reality (1978)

• Ming (1980)
• Home (1981)
• Murray's Steps (1982)

With Material / Bill Laswell

• Memory Serves (1981)
• The Third Power (1991)

With Sly & Robbie / Bill Laswell

• Rhythm Killers (1987)

With Carlinhos Brown / Bill Laswell

• Bahia Black: Ritual Beating System (1991)

• Themes & Improvisations on the Blues (1992)

• Darn It! (1992) with Paul Haines
• A Thousand Nights and a Night (Shadow Night – 1) (1996)

• Hip Hop Be Bop (1993) with Craig Harris
• Vietnam: Reflections (2005)

• Blues in the East (1994)

• 25 Years (1996)

With Flute Force Four (Threadgill, Pedro Eustache, Melecio Magdaluyo, James Newton)

• Flutistry (1990, released 1997)

• Angles of Entrance (1998)

With Jean-Paul Bourelly

• Boom Bop (2000)
• Trance Atlantic – Boom Bop II (2001)

With Ejigayehu "Gigi" Shibabaw

• Gigi (2001)

• Black Midnight Sun (2002)

• Absolute Quintet (2006)

With Wadada Leo Smith

• The Great Lakes Suites (2012, released 2014)
• The Chicago Symphonies (2021)

• Made in Chicago (ECM, 2013 [2015]) with Muhal Richard Abrams, Larry Gray and Roscoe Mitchell