Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Ron Thomas Quartet: The House of Counted Days

270

Ron Thomas Quartet: The House of Counted Days

By

View read count
Ron Thomas Quartet: The House of Counted Days
Pianist Ron Thomas leads a quartet with a trumpeter (John Swana) out front on The House of Counted Days, and two things jump out: an obvious Miles Davis influence, and some striking originality.

The opener, "Fancy of Fate," pushes you off balance. An oddly percussive workout, jaunty, ebullient, crisp; and the frame of reference is anybody's guess. Bassist Tony Marino works that big fat rubber band thing (four of them) on upright—muscular, with gorgeous sustaining power—while trumpeter Swana bites off sharp notes...

Swana's Miles-mute work is beautiful on this CD, but his open horn stuff sounds even better. He has a bright, bold, coppery tone.

Then leader Thomas goes percussive with his right hand, a repeated note (forty, fifty times?) behind Swana. He turns the piano into a drum of sorts; then the trumpeter blows into a repetition mode, making himself a rhythm instrument while the piano gets to tell its story.

The Miles Davis influence surfaces on "Lines Where Beauty Lingers." And like the title tune, the mood comes out of Davis's period of transition—the very early sixties, between his two great quintets, after Kind of Blue and before Wayne Shorter—an underappreciated time in his musical life. Thomas here is less percussive, more in a Bill Evans mode, while Swana is pensive and tender.

Then "Tough Nut" brings the second great quintet to mind, with its contained freneticism and smoldering propulsion.

The title track is indescribably beautiful: organic, fluid, ethereal, space used to perfection. A floating on a cloud dream. Worth the price of admission itself.

The House of Counted Days is an extraordinary CD. If Ron Thomas had a higher profile, it would win yearly top ten honors. It'll be there anyway for those of us who've had the privilege of experiencing it.

www.ronthomasmusic.com

Track Listing

Fancy of Fate, Code Red, Lines Where Beauty Lingers, Tough Nut, Ones and Eights, The House of Counted Days, Lucky Cuss, Blue Glass Country, Here

Personnel

Ron Thomas, piano; John Swana, trumpet; Tony Marino, bass; Joe Mullen, drums

Album information

Title: The House of Counted Days | Year Released: 2003 | Record Label: Vectordisk

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.