Jazz Articles about Ron Thomas

Ron Thomas / Paul Klinefelter: Blues for Zarathustra

by Budd Kopman
May 7, 2008

With Blues For Zarathustra, pianist Ron Thomas returns to an area of interest that has always been a part of his musical life, but which has not be emphasized or recorded recently. What he presents, with his long time playing partner, bassist Paul Klinefelter, is a straight-ahead set where simplicity, delicate intensity, constant interplay and a fertile imagination rule. Those who have followed Thomas' output, including his solo works, 17 Solo Improvisation (Vectordisc, 2006) and Wings of ...

Ron Thomas: 17 Solo Piano Improvisations

by Budd Kopman
April 13, 2008

Music is the language of sound, of vibrations; and hence, at a basic level, of physics. The history of Western music is an effort to understand and control how these vibrations interact and relate to each other, always with an ear towards how they affect the listener. Music's emotional affect on us is its greatest mystery. Pianist Ron Thomas' 17 Solo Piano Improvisations is an exploration of certain features of the music of Franz Liszt, as they ...

Ron Thomas: Wings of the Morning

by Budd Kopman
April 12, 2008

Pianist Ron Thomas has led an extremely interesting life, musically and otherwise, and it is distilled into the lovely and intense set of pieces on Wings of the Morning, originally recorded in 1978, and now reissued on CD. Training from a young age to be a concert pianist, Thomas eventually realized that the rigors and mindset necessary for that kind of musical life were not his forte, and he turned to composition, studying with many famous people ...

Ron Thomas/John Swana/Joe Mullen: Cycles

by Dan McClenaghan
April 30, 2007

Many jazz pianists have a grounding in the classical side of music. Ron Thomas's anchoring may be deeper there than most. His back-to-back piano trio outings, Doloroso (Art of Life Records, 2006) and Music in Three Parts (Art of Life Records, 2006), explored some very alluring, loose sound shapes shaded by his classical side in a quite accessible way--gorgeous recordings, both.

A trip to the pianist/composer's website and an exploration of his eloquent and extensive ramblings is quite a strange ...

Ron Thomas Trio: Doloroso

by Dan McClenaghan
May 13, 2006

Ron Thomas took a few years off since his last CD release, the excellent House of Counted Days (2002). But just this year, the pianist, a commsumate musical artist, has offered up two stellar piano trio outings, Music in Three Parts and Doloroso.Thomas employs similar limitations for both of these sets. In the case of Music in Three Parts, it's a boundary of three chordal rhythmic patterns; with Doloroso, he sets perhaps a looser stricture. The resulting sounds ...

Ron Thomas Trio: Music in Three Parts

by Dan McClenaghan
March 23, 2006

Relative simplicity and a complete lack of pretense are two features that make Music in Three Parts such a standout sound. The disc's six tunes are based on three different musical figures: the three “Improptus" on a figure in D minor; the two “Caprices" on a figure in C major; and the final “Epilog" on a figure in A flat major. The result is a alluring sound that mixes a mesmerizing melodic beauty with some of the finest trio interaction ...

The Jazz Artistry of Ron Thomas: Interfacing Jazz and Classical Music

by Victor L. Schermer
June 10, 2004

Ron Thomas' persona reminds me a bit of the Archangel Gabriel, who appears on all those great Renaissance paintings playing the trumpet, except that Ron is a pianist. Ron, like Gabriel, stays in the background, but has a big influence on what goes on, and you know he's always up to something musical while affecting the destinies of those around him. A jazz pianist who resides in Coatesville, PA, he came up in the 'sixties', formed a close personal and ...