Sneak Peek: Henry Threadgill Podcast

Jo Reed: I think the AACM, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, which was begun by NEA Jazz Master Muhal Richard Abrams is such an important organization in modern music. Can you talk about the vision that propelled AACM, the philosophy that knitted you all together?

Henry Threadgill: It was really Muhal's singular vision concerning writing your own music and presenting your own music and developing and studying music, not jazz. The agenda was music. He believed deeply in that, and we all picked that up. You can't really say there was such a thing as AACM school. Each one of us were a school in our own. We had our different ideas and different approaches. It required a great deal of discipline in terms of the concept of democracy. Let me tell you what I mean by that. To completely serve another person and to keep your ideas off the table, not to critique, to be completely at their service, regardless of what they ask you to do. The idea is to let those people realize whatever their concepts are, without any interference from anyone and interjecting any kind of critiques whatsoever. Our job was to serve one another without 100%. That was the basis of everything.