Photo from and by Roulette 12.1.11

Henry Threadgill brought his Zooid ensemble to Roulette in Brooklyn this week.  This group shows very well on recordings, which you should certainly investigate; but do see them live, so you can visualize the compositional scheme Threadgill has devised, and grasp even more clearly just how ingenious it is. 

Simply reading the list of instrumentation doesn’t begin to give you a glimmer of how remarkable this group sounds.  For example, Liberty Ellman’s acoustic guitar sounds quite unlike what you’d expect: much more rich and more timbrally complex than what I normally expect from that instrument. 

But the group sound is just the beginning.  The compositional blocks Threadgill assigns to his musicians works astonishingly well, and watching them play together illuminates that remarkable process.  The result manages at once to be mesmerizing and exhilarating.  Contemplation coexists with the steady forward motion of each piece.  And watching this group just underscores how the block components fit in and contribute to that momentum and drive, as well as the insistent undertone of dance in many of the pieces. 

The ensemble effect is so striking, and even luxuriant, that the audience can find it easy to overlook the individual brilliance of the players.  Yet it would be unfair to ignore their considerable individual skills and contributions.  Just for starters, Percussionist Elliot Humberto Kavee is some great drummer, and Library Ellman’s guitar work is consistently impressive and absorbing.  And, yes, it’s even easy in this context to overlook the individual playing of Henry Threadgill himself, who seems content to direct the pieces through his playing. 

Yet Zooid’s ensemble effect ultimately makes the biggest impression, perhaps as it should; and that impression looms large for this listener:  just as the ensemble effect of Air loomed large when Henry Threadgill played with that group almost three decades ago.   Hear and see this group if you can.