Easily Slip Into Another World: A Life in Music

Recommended by Ed Copenhagen, reference archivist

The autobiography of the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and avant-garde jazz saxophonist and flutist Henry Threadgill is an extremely readable and hard-to-put-down memoir. As expected, one learns of the many influences that led to Threadgill’s unique and instantly recognizable music. What makes this memoir unique from other autobiographies of jazz musicians are the nearly 100 pages devoted to Threadgill’s experiences as a Black infantryman in the Vietnam War; these memories are raw and vividly told.