Air Legacy Trio AACM 60th Anniversary

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. 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.