by Rob Shepherd

A newly-minted NEA Jazz Master, Henry Threadgill has been continually honing a personal system of spontaneous composition for five decades. His system is built on longtime collaboration and study, meaning Threadgill performances outside of his regular working groups are rare treats. For several years at The Jazz Gallery, Threadgill has performed outside his working bands like Zooid, joining with pianist Vijay Iyer and drummer Dafnis Prieto in a collaborative trio. While the group was scheduled to perform this weekend, Threadgill is unfortunately no longer able to play (Ravi Coltrane, Graham Haynes, and Joel Ross will step in at various points over the 4 sets).

However, we were able to catch up with Henry recently on the phone, leading us on a discursive conversation about his music, both past and present. Part 1 is below; stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow.

The Jazz Gallery: How do you feel the pandemic has shaped your music?

Henry Threadgill: Well, I don’t know because I haven’t done any performances yet. [laughing]. These performances with Vijay and Dafnis will be the first time I’ve performed for an audience since before the pandemic began. I didn’t really play at all during the pandemic so it definitely got me out of shape. It’s like boxing or dancing in that you get out of shape when you’re not playing for a while. Of course, the same thing also happens if you play too much. A lot of people got burnt out early on in the pandemic because they did a lot of crazy practicing for a while, which made them not want to practice at all.

But no, I haven’t been playing for the last year or two. And when you are out of the game for a while, there is a lag. You don’t respond as fast to other musicians as you normally would. It is like a punch in the boxing ring where you don’t get out of the way fast enough. And I’ve heard that from a lot of people that once you get back in, you feel a little bit behind in the response in what you pick up from other people. So much of playing in a group is musicians communicating with each other and responding to one another. Being away from that for so long dulls our senses because we weren’t using them. So, lately, I’ve been spending my time trying to get back in shape for the performance. And getting in shape is not just physical shape. There’s also a type of response shape to rebuild too. You’re not dealing with your receptivity or senses when you don’t perform for a long time.

TJG: Even though you haven’t been playing, I imagine you’ve been composing during that time.

HT: Yeah, yeah. I had plenty of stuff to do in terms of composing. I have two major things I am working on that will be performed next year. I might be recording the performances of those, but don’t have any specific plans for anything else to be released as a recording. Not yet anyway.

TJG: Do you think, because this will be your first performance in front of an audience since the pandemic, the audience may respond differently to your music than before? I know some artists have indicated that the audience seems more appreciative now because they missed live music during the pandemic.

HT: Well, I don't know what to expect. I'm just trying to get myself up to it. I don’t think I’m going to be completely up to speed but will be as close as I can get. This is the first time in my life that it seems like making music is close to sports. Did you know older civilizations, particularly the Ancient Greeks, considered sports to be an art form?

TJG: No, I did not know that.

HT: Yeah, they considered sports to be one of the arts. In a lot of ways, performing in public again after having not played my instrument for so long is like a boxer getting into the ring without a preliminary bout and having been out of training. I have a little motto on my wall from Muhammad Ali. The quote says “I’m in shape and my training is on time.” It needs to be that way for you to be ready to get into the ring. Well, I’m not in shape and my training is not on time. [laughing]. That’s just a fact. I know other musicians who performed for the first time this summer and they indicated that it took them longer to respond to things. The audience may not even pick up on these things. But the musicians? They know. They know.

TJG: And speaking of the interactions between musicians, you have performed in a trio with Vijay and Dafnis several times over the years. What do you like most about that setting of the three of you?

HT: Well, I don’t know. I just like those two guys. It seems we have found a way to make music together. That’s the crux of it. That is the most important part of any ensemble, that you have found the key and a way to make music artistically. I feel fortunate that we had a place to meet that worked out for all of us. And it’s like that every time we get together. The last time we played together was a few years ago—maybe 2019—in California.

TJG: How do you feel Vijay’s and Dafnis’ musical ideas resonate with your own?

HT: You know, I’ve never thought about it. Every time we get together, it becomes an opportunity to communicate. And it’s always a high wire act. We don’t just walk easily through our performances together, believe me. We have to find our way into each other’s musical worlds. And that’s great. But at the same time, there’s no resistance from any of us; we oblige each other willingly.

Ultimately, I think what the three of us understand is that our objective is to make music. That comes first. So, whenever we do get together, the dominant motive has to be to make music and not get hung up on some technicalities that don’t let us get there. If you are rehearsing and are maybe off on a specific beat, you could spend the next two hours, or even three weeks, trying to fix it and make things work. But if you don’t have that kind of time, then you need to move on and come to another solution. In the end, music itself is the solution. Whatever is on paper comes second. The music itself is more important than what is on paper because if something is just on paper, it’s saying nothing until it is performed.

TJG: Since all three of you are great composers, do you each bring pieces, or is it mostly your pieces? How does the trio work in terms of the compositions?

HT: It’s an equal partnership in terms of music. We all bring separate pieces of music and also make up music right on the spot. It doesn’t have to be exactly equal all the time. Sometimes we may play two or three pieces by one person and none by another. But it doesn’t really matter because, in the next set, it may be the reverse. It is all about what we feel works best in the moment.

TJG: Any plans to record the trio?

HT: No. We don’t have any plans. You know, some things you don’t have to plan. You just get there. You arrive. It just happens. You get to a place and it’s time to do it. You have enough material that you are satisfied with, the time is right, and the opportunity comes up. I am not big on wanting to plan and trying to make things work like that. My experience has been that things generally work out. If you stay with them, they will get around to that at the right time.

TJG: It seems the last several years you’ve been performing more with someone else as the leader and doing their compositions more than in the past. Made in Chicago (ECM, 2015) and Wadada Leo Smith’s Great Lakes Quartet are two that come to mind. What do you like about playing other people’s compositions?

HT: I love it when it is right. But I don’t do it often. I have enough music of my own. But if an opportunity like that comes up, I will do it. But of course, with both Jack [Dejohnette] and Wadada, those relationships also go back so far.

TJG: Do you feel like you play differently when it is someone else’s compositions compared to your own?

HT: Oh yeah. I think so. Or at least I like to think so.

TJG: And as far as your compositions, they’re very unique. What exactly is your process for composing?

HT: Oh, I could never give that away. I couldn’t explain that to you in a brief conversation. I couldn’t explain that to you in even 5 or 8 hours. No way I could explain that briefly. The answer is in the form of a book.

TJG: Would you ever consider releasing it as a book?

HT: No. There is a musician in Australia who wrote his dissertation on my compositions. It was somewhere between 300 and 400 pages. I can’t remember his name right now but he did a pretty good job. He traveled back and forth from New York and Australia to hear us play and interviewed several people in the group, Zooid, and asked a lot of questions. I talked to him a little bit, but it is not in my department to help somebody understand me. You have to figure that out for yourself. I can’t help you through that. Even if I could, what is the point if I am going to just give you the answer? [laughing] If I am just going to give you an answer, what have you done? You haven’t done anything. And it may be more than one answer anyway.

TJG: I do believe you have a biography coming out soon though, correct?

HT: Yes, Brent Edward Hayes is writing a biography. I think it is going to come out in 2022, but I can’t exactly tell. We are way behind on releasing it but I am greatly looking forward to it coming out.

TJG: Back to your compositions, a lot of people have commented on the fluidity between pre-composed and improvised ideas in your works. What are your thoughts on the interplay between the two?

HT: Well, they are different because one is notated and one is not. I’m only speaking about what I do, but in my music, the balance between those two changes from piece to piece. When I finish writing something, it is only the beginning of the process. After that, we have to decide what we are going to do with it. If we put it in the kiln and work on it, then it changes invariably. Have you ever had a suit custom-made?

TJG: Sure.

HT: When you go in, they put it on you with the pins in and all. It’s not fitting quite right and then the tailor starts to make adjustments. This is the same thing. I bring something in and we start making adjustments. We might be putting pins in it for a long time and doing some cutting. Cutting this and cutting that, and moving these things around. It's a process that happens. The end result is never exactly what it was when I wrote it on the page. Not with Zooid anyway. If I was writing something for some other group, I know they don’t have the luxury of working with something the way I work with it and so it may be closer to what was written on the score. There’s less room for discovery.

TJG: Across your various groups—Air, Make a Move, the Sextett, Very Very Circus, Zooid, and the rest—do you feel like your compositional approach has changed over the years?

HT: Yes, it’s consistently changed. All of the music is different and from a different place. They’re each using a different system. Everything is different.

TJG: How do you feel writing for this trio with Vijay and Dafnis differs from what you do for a larger group like Zooid?

HT: Well, I started off writing for a trio, didn’t I? [laughing]. It’s just another trio. That’s the first road I went down with Air.

TJG: Do you feel like the trio with Vijay and Dafnis is in any way a return to some of what you were doing with Air since they’re both in trio form?

HT: No, because I don’t think about music now the way I did when I was working on Air. Also, here, I am writing for piano and percussion while Air had bass and percussion. That’s a big difference. The instrumentation is incredibly important.

TJG: And on that topic, your groups often use less traditional instrumentation, making use of cellos and tubas and the rest. Even for this trio with Vijay and Dafnis, you don’t have a bass. How do you know what's going to sound good and how do you select your instrumentation?

HT: I just hear it, you know? I never started out with the idea in place that there was some sort of fixed instrumentation. I was never really into that. Some people have written that I go out and come up with unique instrumentation, but I don’t think that way. I just follow my natural way of thinking. What I have always cared about is making sure I don’t do things that have always been done. Why should I do something that has already been done by someone else? Especially when a lot of those other musicians have done so well with what they did. It makes me feel like Alfred Hitchock. When people used to ask him why he wouldn’t just redo versions of his classic films, his response was always “well, it’s already a classic, isn’t it?” [laughing]

The performances in which Henry Threadgill was set to perform in a trio with Vijay Iyer and Dafnis Prieto were originally scheduled for Friday, December 17, 2021, and Saturday, December 18, 2021. In light of Mr. Threadgill’s absence, Friday night will instead find Mr. Iyer and Mr. Prieto joined by Graham Haynes and Ravi Coltrane. Saturday night will feature Mr. Iyer, Mr. Prieto, and Mr. Haynes with Joel Ross. Sets are at 7:30 and 9:30 P.M. E.S.T. $35 general admission ($10 for members), $45 reserved table seating ($20 for members) for each set. Livestream (Saturday Only) is $20 ($5 for members) Purchase tickets here.