Jazz Archives

You Know the Number is another outstanding record from the Henry Threadgill Sextet. Over the course of six originals, Threadgill and the band fuse complex and spirited arrangements with incisive solo work. The material includes the calypso-inspired numbers "To Be Announced" and "Bermuda Blues" (one of Threadgill's most straightforward compositions), as well as the bittersweet ballad "Silver and Gold Baby, Silver and Gold." Other songs, like "Theme From Thomas Cole" and "Those Who Eat Cookies," feature the kind of buoyant, march-like rhythms and spastic, cartoon soundtrack horn arrangements Threadgill favored. Throughout the set, the band revels in some lively New Orleans-style unison playing and contributes excellent solos (special mention should go to trumpeter Rasul Saddik for his adept and blazing solos, and also to drummers Pheeroan Aklaff and Reggie Nicholson for their propulsive and tight rhythmic support). As usual, Threadgill's solos include an intriguing mix of dark pathos and intensity, while bassist Fred Hopkins and trombonist Frank Lacy follow suit with intriguing contributions of their own. This title is a must for Threadgill fans and also worthwhile for those interested in the experimental side of jazz.

:::Review by Stephen Cook:::

Henry Threadgill - You Know The Number (1986)

1. Bermuda Blues 9:26
2. Silver And Gold Baby, Silver And Gold 5:45
3. Theme From Thomas Cole 6:39
4. Good Times 6:33
5. To Be Announced 6:27
6. Paille Street 4:26
7. Those Who Eat Cookies 6:16

Credits
Bass - Fred Hopkins
Cello - Diedre Murray
Percussion [Left] - Pheeroan Aklaff
Percussion [Right] - Reggie Nicholson
Saxophone [Alto, Tenor], Flute [Bass] - Henry Threadgill
Trombone - Frank Lacy
Trumpet - Rasul Sadik

Notes
Recorded directly to two-track digital tape at Uptown Chelsea Sound, NYC, October 12 and 13, 1986.
Note that track 6 does not appear on the LP.

First among many ensembles in different genres that have chosen the name Air, this trio specializing in collective improvisation grew directly from the membership of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Throughout 11 albums that appeared over a span of one dozen years this group operated in modes comparable to that of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and at times some of Albert Ayler's early trio realizations. Its inception occurred in 1971, when saxophonist Henry Threadgill agreed to fulfill a request from the theater department at Chicago's Columbia College to devise modern arrangements based upon ragtime compositions of Scott Joplin (a concept borne to fruition by Anthony Braxton and Muhal Richard Abrams in 1976). Threadgill joined forces with bassist Fred Hopkins and drummer Steve McCall, and named the trio Reflection.
Although they parted ways the following year, the cooperative unit reassembled in New York in 1975 and chose the elemental name Air.

:::www.allmusic.com.com:::

:::Review by Scott Yanow@allmusic.com:::

Air - Air Time (1977)

1. I'll Be Right Here Waiting (2:37)
2. No. 2 (2:00)
3. G.v.E. (7:00)
4. Subtraction (13:34)
5. Keep Right On Playing Through The Mirror Over The Water (9:17)

Credits
Bass - Fred Hopkins
Percussion - Steve McCall
Saxophone (alto, Tenor), Flute (bass), Hubkaphone - Henry Threadgill

This CD from altoist Henry Threadgill is a perfect mixture of improvisation and composition, hanging onto devices of the past while creating new music. Some of the ensembles (which match Threadgill with trumpeter Ted Daniels, bass trombonist Bill Lowe, cellist Diedre Murray, bassist Fred Hopkins, and both Newman Baker and Reggie Nicholson on drums) recall Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz with the cello-bass interplay inspired by the one-time team of Scott LaFaro and Charlie Haden. The organized horn parts and the riffs behind the lead voices are quite original and sometimes more interesting than the solos themselves. Of the four songs, "Off the Rag" at first dispenses with the melody quickly but the theme constantly pops up in surprising places. "The Devil" is highlighted by Murray's double-time cello runs behind Threadgill's alto while "Gift" contrasts colorful percussion with solemn long tones from the ensemble. "Sweet Holy Rag" has several sections including a pretty classical-like melody, a danceable rumba, a drum feature, and a fairly violent trumpet solo. However, the more one describes this music, the more seems to be left out. Highly recommended to open-eared listeners.

:::Review by Scott Yanow:::

Henry Threadgill - Rag Bush And All (1989)

1. Off The Rag (12:40)
2. The Devil Is On The Loose And Dancin' With A Monkey (6:44)
3. Gift (5:44)
4. Sweet Holy Rag (13:20)

Credits
Bass - Fred Hopkins
Cello, Co-producer - Diedre Murray
Drums, Percussion - Newman Baker , Reggie Nicholson
Producer - David Stone
Saxophone [Alto], Flute [Bass] - Henry Threadgill
Trombone [Bass] - Bill Lowe
Trumpet, Flugelhorn - Ted Daniels

Recorded for RCA in 1979, the vanguard trio Air set out to explore its jazz roots. In fact, not only the trio's jazz roots, but everybody's right back to Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton as they were inventing a music that would tear up the streets of New Orleans and later change the world. Interestingly, since most of the music here -- all written by the aforementioned except for one tune -- was composed by pianists and is widely regarded as piano music, Air's exploration entirely struck the piano from the conversation. Reedman Henry Threadgill, bassist Fred Hopkins, and drummer Steve McCall turned the ragtime music of the fathers inside out and created an exploratory reinsertion of it into the avant-garde of the late '70s. Jelly Roll's "Buddy Bolden's Blues" becomes a blues from another century in the melodic universe of Threadgill, who doesn't give a damn about changes as much as he does stretching the harmonics of the blues idiom into other musics entirely. And in the familiar "King Porter Stomp," also by Morton, Threadgill challenges McCall, who quadruples the time so Henry and Fred can stop up the middle eight with some weird angular intervals where arpeggiated harmony and modal striation become one and the same thing. Finally, on Joplin's "Weeping Willow Rag," the band moves through the changes and then undermines them, turning them inside out as if this were really a party tune from somewhere that willow trees didn't exist or had already disappeared into some toxic twilight. Here are the joyous blues, the raucous blues, the rip 'em up and then send 'em home blues trapped in a color palette so rich and so varied it's difficult to find only one or two textures to fit them inside. Through it all, this remains the album most Air fans love most, precisely because of all the joy and irreverence in the proceedings, which didn't update the old music, but brought it into focus for the revolutionary improvisational template that it is.

:::Review by Thom Jurek:::

Air - Air Lore (1979)

1. The Ragtime Dance (9:20)
2. Buddy Bolden's Blues (9:30)
3. King Porter Stomp (3:52)
4. Paille Street (2:20)
5. Weeping Willow Rag (11:31)

Credits
Bass - Fred Hopkins
Drums, Percussion - Steve McCall
Producer - Michael Cuscuna
Saxophone [Tenor, Alto], Flute - Henry Threadgill