EFG London Jazz Festival welcomes two icons of the Chicago avant-garde to the Barbican for a night of all-encompassing improvisation.

Composer and woodwind player, Henry Threadgill has been at the forefront of creative improvised music throughout his 40-year-long career leading cutting-edge ensembles. He is only one of three jazz musicians to have been awarded a Pulitzer Prize for In For A Penny, In For A Pound – the latest album by Zooid, his unconventional quintet (reeds, acoustic guitar, cello, tuba, drums) who he performs with in his first London appearance in a decade.

Meanwhile free jazz musician and woodwind improviser and composer, Anthony Braxton is a tireless experimenter in music. He was the first to record an entire album of unaccompanied saxophone music (For Alto, 1968) and has engaged in nearly every conceivable area of creativity throughout his career. For his appearance at the Barbican he will be performing with his New Acoustic Quartet with bassist and multi-instrumentalist Carl Testa, drummer Mariá Portugal and trumpeter Susana Santos Silva.