Up Popped the Two Lips is an album by Henry Threadgill featuring seven of Threadgill's compositions performed by Threadgill's Zooid.Backstrom, L. & Lopez, R. accessed February 12, 2010 The album was the second album on the Pi label and was released simultaneously with Everybodys Mouth's a Book by Threadgill & Make a Move in 2001. accessed February 12, 2010

Reception

Both of Threadgill's initial Pi releases attracted critical approval. The Allmusic review by Thom Jurek awarded the album 4 stars stating "This is a fun, deft, and smart record. Threadgill is more on his game as a composer and as a bandleader than at any point in his career.".Jurek, T. accessed February 12, 2010. The All About Jazz review by Glenn Astarita stated "it is a joy to delve into the band's multidirectional evolutionary processes".Astarita, G. All About Jazz, May 13, 2002 The Boston Phoenixs Ed Hazell

stated "Threadgill has mixed these elements before, but not all in one working band, and he’s rarely given himself as much solo room in music so heavily composed".Hazell, E. The Boston Phoenix, December 13-20, 2001

Personnel

*Henry Threadgill - alto saxophone, flute

*Liberty Ellman - acoustic guitar

*Tarik Benbrahim - oud

*José Davila - tuba

*Dana Leong - cello

*Dafnis Prieto - drums

References

Category:2001 albums

Category:Henry Threadgill albums

Category:Pi Recordings albums

Artist/Band Information

Henry Threadgill (born February 15, 1944, in Chicago, Illinois) is an American composer, saxophonist and flautist. One of the leading composers and arrangers in avant garde jazz, Threadgill came to prominence in the 1970s leading ensembles with unusual instrumentation and often incorporating a range of non-jazz genres.

Biography

Early life and career

Threadgill first performed as a percussionist in his high school marching band before taking up the baritone saxophone and later a large portion of the woodwind instrument family. He soon settled upon the alto saxophone and the flute as his main instruments.

He was one of the original members of the legendary AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) in his hometown of Chicago and worked under the guidance of Muhal Richard Abrams before leaving to tour with a gospel band. In 1967, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, playing with a rock band in Vietnam in 1967 and 1968. He was discharged in 1969.

Upon his return to Chicago he rejoined fellow AACM members Fred Hopkins and Steve McCall, forming a trio which would eventually become the group Air, one of the most celebrated and critically acclaimed avant-garde jazz groups of the 1970s and 1980s. In the meantime, Threadgill had moved to New York City to begin pursuing his own musical visions, which explored musical genres in innovative ways thanks to his daringly unique group collaborations. His first group, X-75, was a nonet consisting of four reed players, four bass players and a vocalist.

The Sextet/Sextett

In the early 1980s, Threadgill created his first critically acclaimed ensemble as a leader, Henry Threadgill Sextet (actually a septet; he counted the two drummers as a single percussion unitGiddins, Gary & Scott DeVeaux. (2009) New York: W.W. Norton & Co, ISBN 9780393068610), which released three LPs on About Time Records. After a hiatus, during which Threadgill formed New Air with Pheeroan akLaff replacing the late Steve McCall on drums, Threadgill re-formed the Henry Threadgill Sextett (with two t's). This group recorded three CDs on the Novus Records label. The six albums the group recorded feature some of Threadgill's most accessible work, notably on the album You Know the Number.

The group's unorthodox instrumentation included two drummers, bass, cello, trumpet and trombone, in addition to Threadgill's alto and flute. Among the players who filled these roles were drummers akLaff, John Betsch, Reggie Nicholson and Newman Baker; bassist Fred Hopkins; cellist Deidre Murray; trumpeters Rasul Siddik and Ted Daniels; cornetist Olu Dara; and trombonists Ray Anderson, Bill Lowe and Craig Harris.

Very Very Circus and beyond

very-very-circus-ticket.jpgframeThe CD "Live At Koncepts" captured the Very Very Circus group live during its earliest days, in 1991

During the 1990s, Threadgill pushed the musical boundaries even further with his ensemble Very Very Circus. In addition to Threadgill, the group's core consisted of two tubas, two electric guitars, a trombone or french horn, and drums. With this group he explored more complex and highly structured forms of composition, augmenting the group with everything from latin percussion to French horn to violin to accordion and an array of exotic instruments and vocalists.

Threadgill composed and recorded with other unusual instrumentations, such as a flute quartet (Flute Force Four, a one-time project from 1990); and combinations of four cellos and four acoustic guitars (on Makin' A Move).

By this time Threadgill's place amongst the upper echelon of the avant-garde was secured, so prolific in fact that he was signed by Columbia Records for three albums (a rarity for musicians of his kind). Since the dissolution of Very Very Circus, Threadgill has continued in his iconoclastic ways with ensembles such as Make A Move, Zooid and Make A Move included guitarists Brandon Ross and James Emery and drummer J.T. Lewis. Zooid, a sextet with tuba, acoustic guitar , cello and oud (played by Moroccan Tarik Benbrahim) has been the primary vehicle for Threadgill's most current compositions throughout the 2000s.

Sound and influences

Although Threadgill's musical roots are in jazz, the blues and gospel music, he is considered to be one of the premier "creative" or avant-garde composers in music today. His compositions are truly American, often representing a melting pot of musical genres; at any given time you may hear cleverly mixed elements of traditional African music, Latin music, folk music, New Orleans brass and opera in addition to his more obvious influences. His compositions can be a very complex affair, with textures so dense and intricate (and in later years so strictly scored) as to border upon being through composed. While this seems to be in contrast to the loose, improvisatory feel of much jazz, his best compositions still bring that feeling to the forefront.

Threadgill has recorded or performed with many of the legends of the jazz avant-garde, including Anthony Braxton, Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell, Joseph Jarman, David Murray and Bill Laswell.

Personal life

Treadgill was married to singer Cassandra Wilson.Davis, Francis. (1990) Outcats: jazz composers, instrumentalists, and singers, Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780195055870, p 62. He has a daughter with choreographer Christina Jones, a founding member of the . Threadgill's daughter with Jones, , is an up and coming soul-blues artist with much of her father's flair for genre-bending experimentation. His long time wife/partner debut album was named best of pop 2007 by the Wall Street Journal.

Discography

As leader

*1979: X-75 Volume 1

*1982: When Was That? (Henry Threadgill Sextet)

*1983: Just the Facts and Pass the Bucket (Henry Threadgill Sextet)

*1984: Subject to Change (Henry Threadgill Sextet)

*1987: You Know the Number (Henry Threadgill Sextett, Novus Records)

*1988: Easily Slip Into Another World (Henry Threadgill Sextett, Novus Records)

*1989: Rag, Bush and All (Henry Threadgill Sextett, Novus Records)

*1990: Spirit of Nuff...Nuff (Very Very Circus)

*1991: Live at Koncepts (Very Very Circus)

*1993: Too Much Sugar for a Dime (Very Very Circus, Axiom Records)

*1993: Song Out of My Trees (Threadgill compositions and arrangements, although he doesn't play on all the tracks himself.)

*1994: Carry the Day (Very Very Circus, Columbia Records)

*1995: Makin' a Move (half Very Very Circus, the other half performed by small ensembles of cellos, guitars and piano; Columbia Records)

*1996: Where's Your Cup? (Make A Move, Columbia Records)

*2001: Everybodys Mouth's a Book (Make A Move, Pi Recordings)

*2001: Up Popped the Two Lips (Zooid, Pi Recordings)

*2005: Pop Start the Tape, Stop (Zooid, LP only)

*2009: This Brings Us To Volume 1 (Zooid, Pi Recordings)

With Air

*1975: Air Song

*1976: Air Raid

*1977: Live Air

*1977: Air Time

*1978: Open Air Suit

*1978: Montreux Suisse

*1979: Air Lore

*1980: Air Mail

*1982: 80° Below '82

*1983: Live at Montreal International Jazz Festival - as New Air

*1986: Air Show No. 1 - as New Air with Cassandra Wilson

As sideman

With Muhal Richard Abrams

*Young at Heart/Wise in Time (1969)

*1-OQA+19 (1977)

With Chico Freeman

*Morning Prayer (1976)

With Roscoe Mitchell

*Nonaah (1977)

*L-R-G/The Maze/S II Examples (1978)

With Frank Walton

*Reality (1978)

With David Murray

*Ming (1980)

*Home (1981)

*Murray's Steps (1982)

With Material

*Memory Serves (1981)

*The Third Power (1991)

With Sly & Robbie

*Rhythm Killers (1987)

With Bahia Black

*Ritual Beating System (1991)

With Leroy Jenkins

*Themes & Improvisations on the Blues (1992)

With Kip Hanrahan

*Darn It! (1992) with Paul Haines

*A Thousand Nights and a Night (Shadow Night - 1) (1996)

With Billy Bang

*Hip Hop Be Bop (1993) with Craig Harris

*Vietnam: Reflections (2004)

With Sola

*Blues in the East (1994)

With Abiodun Oyewole

*25 Years (1996)

With Flute Force Four

*Flutistry (1997)

With Douglas Ewart

*Angles Of Entrance (1998)

With Jean-Paul Bourelly

*Boom Bop (2000)

*Trance Atlantic - Boom Bop II (2001)

With Ejigayehu "Gigi" Shibabaw

*Gigi (2001)

With Lucky Peterson

*Black Midnight Sun (2002)

with Dafnis Prieto

*Absolute Quintet (2006)

References