Pi | Akateeminen Kirjakauppa

The latest from Pulitzer Prize-winner Henry Threadgill, The Other One, 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, Poof (Pi 2021). That album featured Zooid, 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 In for a Penny, In for a Pound - 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.