Composer, multiple woodwindist, and Unpopular Music favorite Henry Threadgill has won this year's Pulitzer Prize for music for In for a Penny, In for a Pound. It's a fantastic example of Threadgill's compositional style, a combination of what people call "jazz" and what people call "modern classical music." There is perhaps a larger amount than usual for jazz of written-out material plus a rather specific (yet still stimulating) course laid out for improvisation. Threadgill is one of those composers, like say Beethoven or Brahms on one hand, Charles Mingus or Tim Berne on the other who are able to take a few constant elements and consistently find new ways to combine and develop them over the years into something new.
If I'm not mistaken, this is the third time a "jazz musician" has won the Pulitzer. Wynton Marsalis won in 1997 for his (in my opinion) rather workman-like Blood on the Fields, a retelling through music of the African-American experience, which pales in comparison to the similarly themed "Roots and Folklore" by John Carter, which I have praised in this space on several occasions.
Ornette Coleman won for his concert recording Sound Grammar, which, as good as it is, seemed a bit like it was awarded not for the work itself, but in recognition of Ornette's body of work, sort of like when Paul Newman won his Oscar for the Color of Money.
The committee seems to not quite be able to recognize this as a "composition", however. The official site refers to In for a Penny, In for a Pound as a recording, citing the album release date in the spot where it usually lists a work's premiere. I would love to see the Village Vanguard, where I heard Threadgill's group Zooid perform this piece in August 2014, join the ranks of Carnegie and Symphony Halls, or Lincoln or Kennedy Centers as the site of a Pulitzer winner's premiere.
No comments:
Post a Comment