{"id":3293,"date":"2021-09-21T21:18:28","date_gmt":"2021-09-22T02:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/?p=3293"},"modified":"2021-09-27T15:51:43","modified_gmt":"2021-09-27T20:51:43","slug":"threadgill-zooid-poof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/threadgill-zooid-poof\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Henry Threadgill Zooid’s ‘Poof’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As some artists approach their late careers they become ruthless self-editors, paring down their style to remove everything that is unnecessary or extraneous. Because the unnecessary is seldom granted admission to Henry Threadgill’s compositional world, Poof <\/em>(Pi Recordings, 2021), the sixth recording from his Zooid band, and the first since 2015, is about something different. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By now, Jose Davila, Liberty Ellman, Christopher Hoffman, and Elliot Humberto Kavee articulate Threadgill\u2019s serial intervallic language with a fluency that allows the music\u2019s swarming polyphony to emerge with unprecedented focus.  So, let\u2019s call Poof<\/em> a refinement of a singular and immediately recognizable style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Threadgill\u2019s dazzling originality as a composer and conceptualist always takes center stage, but Poof<\/em> reminds us that he\u2019s still a great player too.  The title composition, a solemn and grave feature for Threadgill\u2019s raw-toned alto and Hoffmann\u2019s mournful cello, could be a funeral oration or a love song. It could also be both, which would make a characteristically Threadgillian move. Here, as everywhere on the recording, transparent textures clear room for every member of the band to take turns in the solo spotlight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s how the album starts on \u201cCome and Go,\u201d which begins as if the needle dropped in the middle of Hoffman\u2019s cello solo.  It\u2019s Davila\u2019s turn on \u201cBeneath The Bottom\u201d where he hands the bassline off to Hoffman, swapping the tuba to deliver an eloquent trombone solo. After beginning mysteriously with the composer\u2019s bass flute stalked by eerie whistles (cello harmonics?), the spare, almost stark \u201cHappenstance\u201d dissolves into unaccompanied features for Ellman\u2019s lightly amplified guitar and a whispery percussion feature in a Don Moye-ish vein from Kavee. The floating rhythm and motion-offense polyphony of \u201cNow and Then,\u201d returns the ensemble sound to recent practice, but with moderate dynamics and chamber-like transparency. Refinement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A word about the length of the release: at 38 minutes, some listeners might feel shortchanged.\u00a0 That\u2019s nonsense. There’s enough music here to keep us busy until the next Zooid release. But please let’s not have to wait six years for it.<\/p>\n\n\n