The winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for his work "In for a Penny, In for a Pound", Henry Threadgill is widely considered to be among the most important artists in contemporary music. On 'Double Up, Plays Double Up Plus', he presents his ensemble Double Up.
The New York Times called him a "composer and bandleader of intense, unyielding originality, nobody's idea of a compromise." An early member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), he continues to adhere to that organization's tenet for finding one's individual path through original music. With 'Double Up, Plays Double Up Plus', he builds on all of his prior work to create two magisterial works of great power and beauty. Together, they represent the crowning achievements in Threadgill's still-flourishing half-century long career.
The ensemble Double Up, first appeared on Old Locks and Irregular Verbs, which was voted the best jazz album of 2016 in both the NPR and Jazz Times Critics Polls. The New York Times declared that release "just as easy to picture in Pulitzer contention" and NPR called it "a masterpiece."
On board are holdovers Davila (tuba), Hoffman (cello), Filiu (alto saxophone, alto flute), Macdonald (alto saxophone), Weinrib (drums, percussion), but this time featuring the remarkable three-concert grand pianos of David Virelles, David Bryant and Luis Perdomo. The interaction between the three pianists lie at the heart of this piece, performing an intricate contrapuntal dance of varying attack, register, and density.
