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Jazz Articles about Pat Thomas
Neil Charles Quartet: Dark Days
by Mark Corroto
In 2025, amid global unrest and political fracture, the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom can feel like a distant dream, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have a Dream" speech like a myth from a gentler past. Has social media, with all its noise and manipulations, induced a kind of societal amnesia? Has King's “arc of the moral universe" begun to bend backward under the weight of cynicism and fatigue? If your glass is half empty, ...
Continue ReadingShifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders: Ecliptic
by Mark Corroto
Some books are divided into chapters--numbered, titled, and carefully structured. The musical equivalent is the tracklist: segmented, labeled pieces presented in order. But Ecliptic by the trio Shifa (شفاء, Arabic for “healing") rejects that format entirely. This 46-minute set of improvised music by saxophonist Rachel Musson, pianist Pat Thomas and drummer Mark Sanders unfolds without titles, track divisions, or breaks. It is a single, uninterrupted performance recorded live at London's Café OTO in February 2023. Like their previous ...
Continue ReadingPat Thomas: This is Trick Step
by Mark Corroto
Where to begin with the music of Pat Thomas? The London-born pianist began his journey in classical music before a televised performance by Oscar Peterson led him down the path of jazz and free improvisation. Over the past forty-plus years, Thomas has forged a singular voice in the avant-garde, contributing to groundbreaking ensembles such as the About Group, Black Top, the London Improvisers Orchestra, اسم (ism), and the critically acclaimed quartet أحمد (Ahmed) with Antonin Gerbal, Seymour Wright, and Joel ...
Continue ReadingBley School: Where?
by John Sharpe
Punningly recalling beloved British children's TV programme Play School, the name Bley School neatly encapsulates what is afoot on this album, representing an open-minded and irreverent fondness for tunes, especially those associated with the groundbreaking Canadian pianist Paul Bley. Responsible for this is the threesome of pianist Pat Thomas, bassist Dominic Lash and drummer Tony Orrell. Captured live at north London's Cafe Oto in 2022, Where? constitutes the band's second album following its eponymous 2019 debut also issued by Brooklyn's ...
Continue ReadingThélonius García, Neta Raanan, Christopher Parnis, Pat Thomas
by Cheryl K.
During this week's two-hour program of Jazz and improvised music, selections from new releases by pianist and composer Thélonius García, tenor saxophonist Neta Raanan, bassist Christopher Parnis, violinist and composer Jenny Scheinman, guitarist David Bailis, and keyboardist Pat Thomas. Playlist Henry Mancini and His Orchestra “"The Pink Panther" Theme" from The Return of the Pink Panther [OST] (RCA) 3:05 Ittetsu Nasuda “Grayscale" from Tailwind (Ittetsu Nasuda) 6:38 Thélonius García “Marche Nocturne" from Marche Nocturne (Thélonius García) 3:07 John ...
Continue ReadingTony Oxley Quintet: Angular Apron
by Chris May
Among the most welcome jazz events of 2024 is the return to active duty of the great British saxophonist Larry Stabbins following an absence of over a decade. Stabbins went into voluntary exile in 2013, after around thirty-five years at the deep end of British jazz. Disenchanted with the culturally regressive direction in which the music and its ecology seemed to be heading, he even went so far as selling his tenor. But things change, and towards the end of ...
Continue ReadingJohn Butcher / Pat Thomas / Dominic Lash / Steve Noble: Fathom
by John Sharpe
Finely judged sounds studded in space. Bursts of incipient rhythm. Wafts of fire music energy. Those are just some of the fruitful products of the British foursome of saxophonist John Butcher, pianist Pat Thomas, bassist Dominic Lash and drummer Steve Noble. A spider's web of alliances connects them, notably tangled given their time on the promiscuous UK free scene, so it is all the more surprising that Fathom documents their first meeting as a group, in north London's Cafe Oto ...
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