In For A Penny, In For A Pound - Henry Threadgill & Zooid (2015)

Ideated from: a Black History Month reminder that black artists largely built the modern world of music

This record won the Pulitzer Prize in music in 2016.

Threadgill has developed a compositional system that gives structure to a piece but still gives the musicians room to improvise. I wouldn’t exactly say I understand the system, but you can see if you can.

What it does is to create an intricate and busy piece of work where the musicians play interlocking structures that don’t really accompany one another, but still fit together because of the harmonic and rhythmic framework he has them play in. Here’s another article where he talks about Alban Berg’s serialism, where you build a system of rules to decide what notes are played. Then he combines that with the spontaneity of free jazz into what he calls “free serialism.”

Zooid is Threadgill’s main ensemble. It includes drums, cello, guitar, trombone, and Threadgill on alto saxophone. Everyone is credited with multiple instruments, but those are the main ones that crop up.

Each section or “epic” features a main instrument, but also has the supporting players running their own figures underneath.

It doesn’t sound fun from what I’m describing, but it ends up being endlessly interesting. You get the occasional dissonance, but it all fits together smashingly.