Arts Centre Vooruit, Ghent, Belgium

• Watch a video of Threadgill’s concert in Vooruit.

African-American saxophone player and composer Henry Threadgill is considered one of the masters and innovators of contemporary jazz. Although he is not a fan of labels himself: “I do music, period.” So it doesn’t come as a surprise that Threadgill has an eclectic style, making rather atypical jazz. His ensembles are unusual, frequently consisting of instrument pairs. For Very Very Circus (which could be seen at Vooruit), he used two guitars, two tubas, percussion and sax. For Zooid, two trombone players will take the stage together with sax, guitar, bass, tuba and drums. This results in clever, yet accessible music, developing themes and then deconstructing them. On top of that, Threadgill always works with fantastic musicians. Liberty Ellman, for example, is a tremendously gifted guitar player.

“I do music, period. Jazz, European orchestral music. American religious music, white and black. Parades. All types of functional music, period. All of it. Whatever”