Henry Threadgill, X-75 Volume 1 (Arista Novus, AN 3013 1979)

I've always tried to limit myself to posting recordings that aren't easily available anywhere else. This isn't the first post of Henry Threadgill's X-75, but it's my own rip of the vinyl, so it might be of interest as another example of this wonderful and long out of print recording.

Brian Olewnick at allmusic.com writes:
"After ten years as a member of the innovative trio Air, Henry Threadgill's first album as a leader immediately plunged into experimental waters. He utilized a nonet the likes of which had certainly never been heard before and probably not since: four reed players, four bassists, and a vocalist. The bass quartet was made up of participants in Brian Smith's Bass Violin Choir, and here they provide not only most of the rhythmic impetus but also carry a good deal of the melodic weight, as Threadgill's massive talent for mid-size band arrangements is immediately apparent. Their opening few minutes on "Celebration" presents a marvelous array of bowed, hymn-like tones as well as deeply grooving pizzicato lines. The songs are less solo vehicles than complete compositions, already prefiguring several of the directions the leader would take with his subsequent ensembles. Only "Air Song," an ethereal piece scored for four flutes and voice, meanders a bit and fails to really catch hold, though even then it presents some wonderful textures and colors. The closer, "Fe Fi Fo Fum," is the most traditionally jazzy of the pieces, allowing for something close to a theme-solos-theme format, Threadgill's alto given a moment to shine in all its acerbic glory. As of 2002, X-75, Vol. 1 was unreleased on disc and, even more disappointingly, there was never a "Vol. 2." But Threadgill fans looking for a link between Air and his Sextett owe it to themselves to search this one out."

Credits:
Bass - Fred Hopkins , Leonard Jones , Rufus Reid
Bass, Bass [Piccolo] - Brian Smith (9)
Clarinet [Bass], Flute - Douglas Ewart
Piccolo Flute, Flute [Alto], Saxophone [Tenor] - Wallace McMillan
Producer - Michael Cuscuna
Saxophone [Alto], Flute, Flute [Bass] - Henry Threadgill
Saxophone [Soprano], Flute - Joseph Jarman
Vocals - Amina Claudine Myers

Henry Threadgill Sextet, When Was That?, (About Time, 1982)

From Thom Jurek at allmusic.com "Finally! After almost two decades of CDs we get reissues of saxophonist/composer Henry Threadgill's legendary sextet from the early 1980s. And while it's true that this band put out some hellishly great records for RCA during the middle of that decade, the trio of albums from About Time is arguably its greatest period. This is the band that included cornet wiz Olu Dara, trombonist Craig Harris, longtime cohort Fred Hopkins on bass, piccolo bassist Bryan Smith, and drummers Pheeroan Aklaff and John Betsch! Threadgill's compositions at the time were wonderfully strident exercises in both restraint and open-door improvisation. His melodies were as rooted in R&B traditions -- as evidenced here by the free for all "10 to 1" -- as they were in the new forms put form by Ornette Coleman (check "Melin" and the title track). Threadgill's main thrust was to create a series of modal environments whereby all instrumentalists would engage with one another in the framework of a particular tune, yet play different roles as the ensemble went on its way through the record. Therefore, his own flute playing, say on "Just B," would be organized differently than it was in "10 to 1," as would the particular weight of its solo. Nowhere does this play itself out more than in the rhythmic roles between Betsch and Aklaff, and in the bowed bass atmospherics of Hopkins and Smith. Ultimately, however, this band swung together, no matter how far out the proceedings got. They always returned to Threadgill's magically inherent lyricism and humor in the end, and each and every track here bears that out. This is a nearly mystical album in the life of this band, and, at last, folks who own CD players get a chance to find it out for themselves."

Henry Threadgill Sextet, Just the Facts and Pass the Bucket, (About Time 1983)

Dusty Groove America writes: "Overlooked genius from Henry Threadgill -- one of his under-exposed 80s sessions for the About Time label, and work that's every bit as great as his better-known sides for Delmark or Black Saint! The group here has a nice sense of freedom and interplay -- almost a quality that hearkens back to Threadgill's roots in the AACM, thanks to strong contributions from Craig Harris on trombone, Olu Dara on trumpet, Fred Hopkins on bass, Deidre Murray on cello, and both Pheeroan Aklaff and John Betsch on percussion."