The assumptions surrounding a music memoir differ from almost any other kind of autobiographical writing. For the most part, books about musicians tend toward hagiographic, third-person arguments for why their subject should be more respected, or first-person tell-alls by artists who, after we enjoy the perversity of their stories, have convinced us to respect them a little less. Within the subgenre of jazz writing, there is yet another expectation: that the author will let us in on the “magic trick.” Improvised music is often seen as an inborn mysticism, and we readers may believe that simply learning the origin story of someone with a particularly powerful “magic” will provide us with an epiphany about something we love but don’t fully understand.
Visionary saxophonist, composer, and theorist Henry Threadgill is an iconic figure in contemporary music, and his book Easily Slip into Another World has been buzzed about by musicians and fans for months. It is unusual for the memoir of an important musical figure on the fringe of the mainstream to be released by a major publisher. Information about the musicians who led the revolutionary, improvisation-based music of the later twentieth century, whether it’s those from the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, Black Artists Group, or any number of similar movements in the United States or Europe, is rare. And any such book usually comes out on a small press with questionable veracity and readability. Easily Slip into Another World, on the other hand, is well-researched and cleanly written by Threadgill and the scholar Brent Hayes Edwards. Its wide release, and the reputation of its authors, has led to much excited speculation.
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