Easily Slip Into Another World: A Life in Music
by Henry Threadgill
Buy on AmazonA NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • An autobiography of one of the towering figures of contemporary American music and a powerful meditation on history, race, capitalism, and art. A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, NPR, The New Yorker Henry Threadgill has had a singular life in music. At 79, the saxophonist, flautist, and celebrated composer is one of three jazz artists (along with Ornette Coleman and Wynton Marsalis) to have won a Pulitzer Prize. In Easily Slip into Another World, Threadgill recalls his childhood and upbringing in Chicago, his family life and education, and his brilliant career in music.…
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"Henry Threadgill’s fiercely original musical voice – irrepressible, uncategorizable, an enlightened riot of sensation and sound – finds a close literary analog in this gripping memoir. Along with tales from the harrowing streets of Chicago and the hallucinatory jungles of Vietnam, the book opens a window onto Threadgill’s resolute artistic convictions, which set him apart from both the jazz tradition and the classical establishment (while leaving his mark on both). That apartness is a personal trademark, and in his telling – fashioned with a deft touch from his perceptive co-author, Brent Hayes Edwards – Threadgill also makes it seem a superpower."
NPR Books We Love — 2023 · apps.npr.org
"I read "Easily Slip Into Another World," by Henry Threadgill and Brent Hayes Edwards, and learned that in the 1950s the Sun Ra Arkestra rehearsed after hours in a wild game meat market in Chicago."
By the Book: Patrick Dewitt · nytimes.com
"Reading Henry Threadgill's "Easily Slip Into Another World: A Life in Music" was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I created for myself. Threadgill, a composer and multi-instrumentalist, is one of the most significant musical creators of the past 40 years."
By the Book: Paul Yamazaki · nytimes.com