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John Dikeman, Pat Thomas, John Edwards, Steve Noble: Volume 1
by John Sharpe
For those worried about soaring energy bills, the inflammatory foursome of tenor saxophonist John Dikeman, pianist Pat Thomas, bassist John Edwards and drummer Steve Noble certainly offers one solution. They must have truly warmed the room at London's Cafe Oto on a cold February evening in 2019, on the evidence of the forty-minute program presented on Volume 1. It is hard to think of a more potent set of practitioners of the free jazz vernacular than this particular agglomeration, all ...
Continue Readingاسم [Ism]: Japanese Flower
by Mark Corroto
The trio اسم [Ism] is comprised of pianist Pat Thomas, bassist Joel Grip and drummer Antonin Gerbal. Japanese Flower by the trio is the second release from a 2018 recording session from Knuttal House in Tokyo, Japan. It is the trio's third release and it follows Metaphor (2019) and إنتقام الطبيعة اسبب تعقدها = Nature In Its Inscrutability Strikes Back (2015), all three released on Umlaut Records. اسم in Arabic, translates to 'Ism" or in English, 'The Name.' For sure, ...
Continue ReadingMoers Festival Interviews: Pat Thomas
by Martin Longley
In 2020, the Moers Festival in Germany presented one of the first full post-lockdown events, with its performers physically in place, and its four-day programme resolutely running in the accustomed Eventhalle venue. There was a stage at each end of this cavernous space, with the French-German Arte television crew filming for broadcast on its channel, as well as providing an online livestream. A small audience was allowed inside the Halle, and the weekender was a massive success, especially under such ...
Continue Reading[Ahmed]: Nights on Saturn (communication)
by Troy Dostert
When [Ahmed] released its debut album, Super Majnoon (Otoroku), in 2019, it provided not only an opportunity to revisit the under-heralded work of pathbreaking bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik. It also offered a bewildering, sometimes intoxicating stew of improvisation that relied equally on minimalist repetition and deeply-rooted grooves. This intrepid team of European musicians, consisting of saxophonist Seymour Wright, pianist Pat Thomas, bassist Joel Grip and drummer Antonin Gerbal, envisioned new ways of continuing Abdul-Malik's quest to find shared connections between jazz ...
Continue ReadingShifa: Live in Oslo
by Mike Jurkovic
A spectrum of subversive, seemingly sinister ambitions erupt upon entering the very vigorous other-world proposed on Live In Oslo, a true mind-meld of London's free-jazz highest order, led by saxophonist Rachel Musson, pianist Pat Thomas and drummer Mark Sanders known collectively as Shifa. Recorded at Oslo's Blow Out Festival in August 2019, the trio finds no trouble breaking space to its atomic bits and telling time to take a holiday, setting apace a restless, anxious investigation into the ...
Continue Reading[Ahmed]: Super Majnoon (East Meets West)
by John Sharpe
It's well known that artistic constraints can in fact aid creativity, but few have put the theory into such good practice as [Ahmed]. The international co-operative of improvisers, comprising the British pair of pianist Pat Thomas and saxophonist Seymour Wright, Berlin-based Swedish bassist Joel Grip and French drummer Antonin Gerbal, takes as its unlikely premise the pioneering music of American bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik which fused Arabic, East African and jazz modes. Claiming Sudanese descent (although jazz historian ...
Continue ReadingAhmed: Super Majnoon (East Meets West)
by Mark Corroto
There are discoveries in jazz waiting (patiently) to be unearthed. Most of them are hidden in plain sight, like the music of Ahmed Abdul-Malik. Born in Brooklyn in 1927, the bassist performed and recorded with, among others Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and Randy Weston. Besides double bass, he pioneered the oud in jazz and improvised music as early as the late-1950s. Was it Randy Weston who inspired Abdul-Malik, or conversely did Abdul-Malik spark Weston to explore African and ...
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