Michael Ramos

Leon Foster Thomas: Calasanitus

by Chris May
February 7, 2023

Born in Trinidad and in 2023 based in London, steel-pan virtuoso Leon Foster Thomas surprised and delighted many in the jazz world with Metamorphosis (Ropeadope, 2016). It was his third album but the first to receive widespread distribution in the US and Europe. The disc proved the steel pan to be serious and sophisticated, sitting comfortably in a lineup of otherwise standard instrumentation, and an instrument that in the right hands can be as expressive as the vibraphone, its nearest ...