Any new offering from widely acclaimed composer, bandleader and woodwinds player Henry Threadgill is an event in the world of progressive jazz, but that might especially be true of Threadgill’s main going concern of the 21st century, Zooid. The quintet has always included the leader plus Jose Davila (trombone, tuba), Liberty Ellman (acoustic guitar) and Elliot Humberto Kavee (drums), with Christopher Hoffman (cello) replacing bassist Stomu Takeishi roughly ten years ago.
That’s the lineup for this newest product Poof, the sixth album for Threadgill’s current small ensemble project. So the plot and band makeup is the same as it was for the last Zooid album In For a Penny, In For a Pound from five years prior and pretty much the same as all those prior five Zooid releases.
But Threadgill doesn’t need to change a thing because the uniqueness of each performance is built-in: using his invention he calls “serial intervallic language,” Threadgill assigns his players not so much a score but a pattern of note intervals as their only guideposts; they are free to improvise around these intervals as they see fit. No one plays in a vacuum, however; none of the parts would really make sense on its own without the other parts for context.
The result is always astounding because it’s so intricate, so intertwined, so chamber music precise it must all be premeditated, right? But since it isn’t, it also flows with an element of human randomness because each instrument is like a voice, and the phrasing often mimics how people talk.
That’s immediately impressed upon the listening mind from the outset. “Come and Go” is one of Threadgill’s ‘grooves’ (yes, in his own way, the man can groove), with Davila holding down the low end authoritatively like James Jamerson and Hoffman attacking his cello with the vigor of the nimbler violin.
The quintet sans Henry Threadgill solos alongside each other on parallel paths as “Poof” commences but Threadgill’s alto sax enters and everyone follows his charted lead which turns out to be a segue way into Ellman’s delicate musings. When the rest of the group returns, it becomes clear that it wasn’t some deviation but part of Threadgill’s larger plan, a melody you have to stand way back to fully appreciate in its entirety.
Davila’s trombone darts around the melody on “Beneath The Bottom” just as slippery as Davila does with the tuba. When the rhythm components kick in midway through, the ‘bass’ parts are handled by Hoffman’s plucked cello, which is just as engaged with Ellman and Davila as it is with Kavee’s rumbling drums. “Happenstance” quickly turns into a wonderful duet between Hoffman and Threadgill on flute, and then Kavee coming up with unusually chromatic tones from his drum kit ahead of a drum solo that doesn’t lack in imagination.
After the largely dispersed nature of the prior three performances “Now And Then” returns to the tightly packed harmonics of “Come and Go” with about half of the song taken up by Ellman’s guitar sailing through chord changes that might cause some other very good musicians to crash and burn.
At 77 years old, this 2021 NEA Jazz Master isn’t coasting toward the end of a productive career. Henry Threadgill’s creative light burns as bright as it ever did and Poof is proof of why he is still earning the accolades bestowed on him for decades.
Poof is being offered starting September 24, 2021 courtesy of PI Recordings.
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