{"id":5757,"date":"2016-04-19T16:47:35","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T16:47:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.artinfo.com\/blunotes\/?p=5757"},"modified":"2016-04-19T16:47:35","modified_gmt":"2016-04-19T16:47:35","slug":"something-right-in-the-universe-dept-henry-threadgill-awarded-pulitzer-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2016\/04\/19\/something-right-in-the-universe-dept-henry-threadgill-awarded-pulitzer-prize\/","title":{"rendered":"(Something Right in the Universe Dep't): Henry Threadgill Awarded Pulitzer Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Credit:<\/a>
Photo:\u00a0Pulitzer Board \/ Handout<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nWe humans are happy because yesterday Henry Threadgill<\/strong> was awarded this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Music<\/strong>.
\nAt the Pulitzer site, Threadgill’s “In for a Penny, In for a Pound”<\/strong> (released in May, 20015, on Pi Recordings) is referred to as “a highly original work in which notated music and improvisation mesh in a sonic tapestry that seems the very expression of modern American life.”
\nThat’s savvy analysis, and it’s a relief to hear the “American-ness” of music from an African American composer\u00a0with strong roots in jazz invoked as something beyond “the democracy of improvisation” or the “cry of freedom.”
\nStill, I hear in Threadgill’s music, and especially in light of the range of his influences, the very expression of life here on earth, period.
\nThreadgill is never at a loss for words. (Cornetist Graham Haynes posted on Facebook that Threadgill could have won a Pulitzer simply for his song titles.) In Nate Chinen’s news piece<\/a> in today’s New York Times, here’s Threadgill’s pull-quote:<\/p>\n

\u201cI create what I create.\u00a0When I\u2019m fortunate enough to create a work, that\u2019s the end of it in my mind. Where it\u2019s placed, where it goes, what people say about it, that is really not my department. I\u2019m in Lingerie, I\u2019m not in Hardware, you know?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Howard Reich, writing in the Chicago Tribune<\/a>, heralded Threadgill’s award as “another blow against the classical monopoly that has been in place from the very first music Pulitzer, awarded in 1943 to the great composer William Schuman for his ‘Secular Cantata No. 2, A Free Song.'”<\/p>\n