Henry Threadgill, the 68-year-old US musician, was described by the New York Times as "one of the most thrillingly elusive composers in and around the jazz idiom". Here's the latest from his unique 12-year-old Zooid sextet, a standout of last year's London jazz festival. Schooled in classical composing, Threadgill boldly applies those resources to melodic development and the interplay of dynamic, textural and rhythmic contrasts – but the phrasing and nuances come from jazz. Zooid's unusual mix of brass, strings, percussion, and Threadgill's sax and flutes offer a very broad palette for a six-piece. This album is pure Threadgill all the way, from the opening softly popping tuba sounds over a drum shuffle to Liberty Ellman's twangy guitar lines, ingeniously paired by the leader's whirring flute figures. Mournful cello whispers are shadowed by cymbals, and deep alto-flute reflections are embraced by Spanish-sounding guitar parts. At the close, a solemnly spoken intonation of the recording credits sounds like Threadgill's invitation to consider where the music on this album really ends. It's highly wrought, serious contemporary music, but it's full of soul and quiet vivacity, too. - John Fordham / The Guardian
La magia de la música de Henry Threadgill vuelve a echársenos encima en cuanto pinchamos «Tomorrow Sunny / The Revelry, Spp». No creo que existan muchos músicos que hayan sido capaces de encontrar un acomodo sonoro tan perfecto para desarrollar sus ideas musicales (que, en el caso de Henry Threadgill, son de por sí extraordinariamente originales), de hecho Threadgill constituye, por sí solo, un universo musical completamente independiente. Me cito tratando de describir la música de las anteriores encarnaciones de este grupo (espero no parecer perezoso, es solo que en esta ocasión, y sin que sirva de precedente, suscribiría hoy lo escrito entonces): “En los grupos de Threadgill cada uno de los músicos se mueve con independencia del resto, siguiendo un camino que queda perfectamente imbricado en los de sus colegas; sin embargo, la impresión más poderosa que percibe el oyente es la de una masa sonora plenamente formada moviéndose al unísono en un espacio ingrávido, como una sustancia globosa en constante movimiento interno cuya lenta ebullición produjera palpitaciones en todas direcciones.” («This Brings Us To, Vol 1» -2009, Pi-); y “la música de Henry Threadgill en general (sobre todo de los años noventa en adelante), pero la de Zooid con particular claridad, me hace pensar en un madero abandonado a su suerte en mitad del océano, durante una tempestad, sacudido constantemente por un oleaje vivo de esos de altamar, con olas cruzándose en todas direcciones en un angustioso vaivén que te hace pensar que menos mal que es el madero y no tú quien está ahí abajo. Y el caso es que resulta imposible apartar la mirada, los sentidos, del madero; su tozuda insistencia en permanecer en la superficie pese a los titánicos esfuerzos del temporal por hundirlo resulta absolutamente absorbente, fascinante» («This Brings Us To, Vol 2» -2010, Pi-).
Para la grabación de «Tomorrow Sunny / The Revelry, Spp» (nombrecito ¿verdad?) Threadgill ha añadido a su quinteto el chelo de Christopher Hoffman, convirtiéndolo en el sexteto que, confiesa, siempre pensó que su grupo Zooid debía ser. Su participación ha propiciado que el grupo gane en plasticidad y empaste sonoros, si tal es posible. La variedad de tempos en una atmósfera fundamentalmente estable, característica (y exclusiva) de ese universo Threadgill al que antes me refería, unido, claro, a la excelencia de las intervenciones de cada miembro del grupo y del grupo en sí (pues Zooid más parece una unidad musical con vida propia, independiente, indivisible, que un agregado de individuos… un poco como nosotros mismos, que somos mucho más que meros conjuntos de células), convierten la escucha de «Tomorrow Sunny / The Revelry, Spp» en una experiencia francamente arrolladora, a poco que uno sea afín a la música de este monstruo esencial en nuestra música durante los últimos 35 años.
A Day Off inicia la grabación en un tempo relativamente relajado, como las improvisaciones que lo jalonan… en cambio, la sensación que uno percibe es de un poderoso, aunque amable, nervio interno. Tomorrow Sunny presenta los típicos movimientos como de mareas marinas del saxofonista, y su intransferible modo de moldear la tensión conforme el grupo la va creando. So Pleased, No Clue es una improvisación colectiva off rhythm, lenta, cadenciosa, concisa, sugerente. See The Blackbird Now, con su tempo lento, presenta la maravillosa flauta baja de Threadgill, enigmática, cuajada de suspense. AmbientPressure Thereby es un vehículo perfecto para escuchar a Zooid en su máxima expresión, improvisando en conjunto e individualmente, creando fascinantes pasajes sonoros llenos de impagables expresividad, misterio, tensión, belleza y emoción: una joya engarzada en el corazón de otra. Put On Keep /Frontispiece, Spp devuelve la música de Zooid a niveles más reposados para dar finiquito a la grabación.
No hay manera de relativizar la importancia de Henry Threadgill como artista creativo de los siglos XX y XXI. «Tomorrow Sunny / The Revelry, Spp» no es ni más ni menos que un nuevo jalón, tan esencial como cada uno de los anteriores, en su particular andadura. En estos oídos que ahora tratan de transcribir en letras lo vivido al escucharlo, pura melaza. - Ricardo Arribas / jazzitis.com
Given the gulf that exists between the populist and the esoteric in music today, any artist with a sufficiently strong identity to render these divides irrelevant can but stand out. Threadgill, a composer-improviser of defiant originality, makes music that has a toughness and weightiness that invoke the spirit of the most hard-boiled of bluesmen and a finesse and delicacy that would delight any adept of chamber music: the musings of his mind are as emphatic as they are understated, as challenging as they are playful. Threadgill's arrangements appear to be conceived not so much in a fixed key signature as a kind of polytonality of enormous flexibility, so that each player seems to have his own elastic harmonic pivot that nonetheless spins into organic cohesion with that of his colleagues.
The result is music that often comprises short, terse phrases that blur the distinction between the rhythmic and melodic to function as ever shifting, oddly slanted counterpoint. If the structural invention of the music is one thing, then its timbral richness is another.
Threadgill's love of low pitches has been clear through his longstanding use of the tuba in previous groups such as Make A Move and Very Very Circus, but the way that the instrument combines with his own bass flute here is enchanting. It produces a sultry, crepuscular haze rather than heaviness, so that the ballooning wind sounds in the group float around the often-spikier notes of the guitars and drums. In contrast to the dream-state quality of some tracks there is a hop-skip-jump funkiness elsewhere when Elliot Humberto Kavee's beat jockeys back and forth between the horns. This ability to switch from meditative melancholia to explosive danger is a surefire indication of the wide expressive range of the band, whose much-anticipated gig at last year's London Jazz Festival did not disappoint. Its leader has the utmost strength of character. He is simply a colossus in contemporary creative music. - Kevin Le Gendre / jazzwise.com
This Brings Us To, Vol. 1 was something of a revelation for me when it was released in 2009. Here was something many were skeptical jazz could still produce: a legitimately novel music, a new path out, an obscure musical system that was exciting as it was enigmatic. The makings of legend were already present. The vision of an undersung AACM legend. A quintet that had reportedly spent the better part of a decade internalizing “the System” before releasing any recorded material. Tuba. Here was music uncanny in its familiarity, yet sounding unlike anything you’d ever heard before.
Three years later, the now six-strong Zooid have returned with their third album, Tomorrow Sunny/The Revelry, Spp. And a slightly new species it is. There’s a newfound space in the music, brief lines of sight that open through the gnarled counterpoint. For those unfamiliar, the band operates using a harmonic system devised by Threadgill. Unlike Coleman’s “harmolodics” (which seems to be more a state of mind or spirit than a bona fide musical construction), Threadgill’s system is a tangible framework, in which musicians are allowed to move according to the interval patterns in chord-like groups of notes called “cells.” The intervallic series dictate everything: the melodic line, voice leading, harmonic interactions, you name it. As long as everyone sticks to the allowable intervals as a piece progresses, the music surges to life. If someone falls out of the language, everything collapses.
Though it could be argued that full-throttle Zooid results in some occasionally clotted music, it’s not until you’re faced with the formless meanderings of “So Pleased, No Clue” or “See the Blackbird Now” that you realize how vital the frenzied counterpoint is to very ideal Zooid has established over three albums. Not that the slow, spacious tunes on Tomorrow Sunny are bad or even uninteresting, only that you come to crave the incredible, propulsive beats of drummer Elliott Humberto Kavee in their absence. Kavee’s abstruse funk is Zooid’s elixir, the torchwood that sets the music off, makes it so ear-catching. Inevitably, it feels like someone is being short-changed when a few musicians are singled out, but in the Zooid machine, it must be said that Kavee and guitarist Liberty Ellman are irreplaceable cogs.
Tomorrow Sunny isn’t quite as compelling as the band’s debut, but it’s still among the best new creative music out there. By the time “Ambient Pressure Thereby” lurches into motion, it’s clear the band still has a lot of life to squeeze out of Threadgill’s model. The addition of cellist Christopher Hoffman and Threadgill’s bass flute are only further evidence that Zooid will mutate to take full advantage of the unfamiliar musical domain Threadgill has sired. This was easily my most anticipated release of 2012, and I’m pleased to say it doesn’t disappoint. / Dan Sorrells / freejazzblog.org
Henry Threadgill's music is best served neither cold nor hot, but with an open mind. The 68 year-old composer and multi-instrumentalist has endured as one of contemporary music's foremost innovators—a cofounder of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a bandleader with over thirty releases, and works with a number of eclectic bands including Zooid, currently his longest running band which includes likeminded acolytes—guitarist Liberty Ellman and tuba/trombone player Jose Davila, among others.
Zooid's Tomorrow Sunny / The Revelry, Spp follows Pi Recording's critically acclaimed This Brings Us To, Volume 1 (2009) and Volume 2 (2010), and demonstrates Threadgill's continued pursuance of music that "defies easy explication." It's as captivating and arresting as any of his previous works. p> If anything, Threadgill's concepts are evolving. Those exhaustive mechanisms of counterpoint and improvisation are still present in "A Day Off," but there are also new soundscapes to capture the imagination in "See The Blackbird Now" where Christopher Hoffman's haunting cello sings as the others join the ethereal line. The six compositions steer through complex sound topographies where Ellman's searching acoustic lines and Davila's low frequency rumblings move between bassist Stomu Takeishi and drummer Elliot Humberto Kavees cadenced glue.
The serrated time signature in "Ambient Press Thereby" is an impossible groove and not for the squeamish. The instruments bopping feverishly: Threadgill's acerbic alto leading the way with quick and searching lines as Ellman later joins the fray with a blossoming solo. It's amazing how the different threads join, split and crisscross, to ultimately arrive at the track's cliffhanging destination.
Tomorrow Sunny / The Revelry, Spp is totally idiosyncratic, exploratory and bursting with immediacy, performed by a tremendous band and its brilliant composer. - Mark F. Turner / allaboutjazz.com
Tracks
1. A Day Off
2. Tomorrow Sunny
3. So Pleased, No Clue
4. See The Blackbird Now
5. Ambient Pressure Thereby
6. Put On Keep / Frontispiece, Spp
7. Recording Information
STOMU TAKEISHI bass guitar
CHRISTOPHER HOFFMAN cello
ELLIOT HUMBERTO KAVEE drums
LIBERTY ELLMAN guitar
JOSE DAVILA trombone, tuba
HENRY THREADGILL alto saxophone, flute, bass flute
All music composed by Henry Threadgill
Recorded December 3-4, 2011 at Brooklyn Recording, Brooklyn, NY
Pi Recordings – PI43