Threadgill, Henry

Henry Threadgill (born February 15, 1944) is an American composer, saxophonist and flautist. He came to prominence in the 1970s leading ensembles rooted in jazz but with unusual instrumentation and often incorporating other genres of music. He has performed and recorded with several ensembles: Air, Aggregation Orb, Make a Move, the seven-piece Henry Threadgill Sextett, the twenty-piece Society Situation Dance Band, Very Very Circus, X-75, and Zooid. He was awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his album In for a Penny, In for a Pound, which premiered at Roulette Intermedium on December 4, 2014. In 2023, he published his autobiography, written with Brent Hayes Edwards: Easily Slip into Another World: A Life in Music. The book was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, along with being a Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, NPR, The New Yorker.