Ars Nova Workshop is thrilled to present the all-star Air Legacy Trio, performing the music of NEA Jazz Master Henry Threadgill, at Solar Myth on Friday, December 13.

Air – the legendary trio of saxophonist, flutist, and hubkaphone inventor/player Henry Threadgill, bassist Fred Hopkins, and drummer Steve McCall – emerged from the fertile collective of Chicago’s AACM in the 1970s to become one of the most thrilling ensembles of the decade. Based around the compositions and arrangements of Pulitzer Prize winner and NEA Jazz Master Threadgill, Air was a musical high-wire act, three master musicians engaged in continual creative interplay of dazzling instrumental virtuosity.

“Through the inheritance whereby the intangibility of music is passed to another runner. In this moment, the very rare Air Legacy Trio.” – Henry Threadgill

The spirit of Air now lives on in the form of the Air Legacy Trio. Threadgill himself recommended his multi-instrumentalist colleague Marty Ehrlich to step into his role in the trio, along with the great drummer Pheeroan AkLaff, who had filled the late Steve McCall’s shows in the last edition of Air in the mid-1980s. Both Ehrlich and AkLaff had performed extensively with the late Fred Hopkins and called upon bassist Hilliard Greene to provide the big sound and creativity that characterized Hopkins’ work.