Henry Threadgill 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.
Pi Recordings is a jazz record label founded by Seth Rosner in 2001. He was soon joined as partner by Yulun Wang. Pi specializes in avant-garde jazz. Its first two albums were by Henry Threadgill.
Stomu Takeishi is a Japanese experimental and jazz bassist. He is known for playing fretless five-string electric bass guitar and a Klein five-string acoustic bass guitar, often using extended techniques and electronic manipulations such as looping.
Chris Speed is an American saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer.
Jason Moran is an American jazz pianist, composer, and educator involved in multimedia art and theatrical installations.
Irene Louise Rosnes, known professionally as Renee Rosnes, is a Canadian jazz pianist, composer, and arranger.
Vijay Iyer is an American composer, pianist, bandleader, producer and writer based in New York City. The New York Times has called him a "social conscience, multimedia collaborator, system builder, rhapsodist, historical thinker and multicultural gateway". Iyer received a 2013 MacArthur Fellowship, a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a United States Artists Fellowship, a Grammy nomination, and the Alpert Award in the Arts. He was voted Jazz Artist of the Year in the DownBeat magazine international critics' polls in 2012, 2015, 2016, and 2018. In 2014, he received a lifetime appointment as the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts at Harvard University, where he was jointly appointed in the Department of Music and the Department of African and African American Studies.
Tony Malaby is an American jazz tenor saxophonist.
John Hollenbeck is an American jazz drummer and composer known for his work with The Claudia Quintet and Bob Brookmeyer.
Chris Lightcap is an American double bassist, bass guitarist and composer born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
Ralph Alessi is an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and ECM recording artist. Alessi is known as a virtuosic performer whose critically-acclaimed projects include his Baida Quartet, with Jason Moran, Drew Gress, and Nasheet Waits, and This Against That, his quintet with Andy Milne, Gress, Mark Ferber, and Ravi Coltrane. Alessi has also recorded and performed with artists including Steve Coleman, Uri Caine, Fred Hersch, and Don Byron.
Ambrose Akinmusire is an American avant-garde jazz composer and trumpeter.
Liberty Ellman is a jazz guitarist born in London and raised in the United States, beginning in New York City. In the early 1980s, Ellman's family moved to California. Before leaving New York, he attended City and Country School in Greenwich Village.
This Brings Us to Volume 1 is an album by Henry Threadgill featuring six of Threadgill's compositions performed by Threadgill's Zooid. The album, Threadgill's first in eight years besides the limited edition Pop Start the Tape, Stop (2005), was released on the Pi Recordings label in 2009.
Dafnis Prieto is a Cuban-American drummer, composer, bandleader, and educator.
Steve Lehman is an American composer and saxophonist in the genres of jazz and experimental music. His compositions have been performed by a number of international performers and orchestras.
In for a Penny, In for a Pound is an album composed by Henry Threadgill for his jazz quintet Zooid, featuring Jose Davila, Liberty Ellman, Christopher Hoffman, and Elliot Humberto Kavee. It was released by Pi Recordings and was awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Tomorrow Sunny / The Revelry, Spp is an album by American jazz saxophonist Henry Threadgill with his band Zooid, featuring Jose Davila on trombone and tuba, Liberty Ellman on guitar, Stomu Takeishi on bass guitar, Elliot Humberto Kavee on drums, and new member Christopher Hoffman on cello, who joined the group making it a sextet. It was recorded in 2011 and released on Pi Recordings.
Jon Irabagon is a Filipino-American saxophonist, composer, and founder of Irabbagast Records.
Chad Taylor is an American drummer, percussionist, and composer. Taylor leads both the Chad Taylor Trio with Brian Settles and Neil Podgurski and Circle Down with Angelica Sanchez and Chris Lightcap. He is a founding member of the Chicago Underground along with Jeff Parker and Rob Mazurek.
