Amos Leon Thomas Jr. (October 4, 1937 – May 8, 1999), better known by his stage name Leon Thomas, was an American jazz and blues vocalist, born in East St. Louis, Illinois, and known for his bellowing glottal-stop style of free jazz singing in the late 1960s and 1970s. He had one of the most distinctive, powerful voices in modern music.
Leon Thomas was born Amos Thomas, Jr. on October 4, 1937,
in East St. Louis, Illinois. He attended Lincoln High School. Already guesting
with local choirs and jamming with contemporaries such as the saxophonist Jimmy
Forrest and the guitarist Grant Green, Thomas was spotted by a disc-jockey who
invited him to come and scat live on his radio show.
Having spent a further two years studying music at
Tennessee State University, Thomas moved to New York in 1958. The following
year, he played the Apollo Theatre in Harlem and toured on a bill topped by Art
Blakey's Messengers. Already famous for his vocal acrobatics, Thomas worked
with the pianist Mary Lou Williams and the saxophonist Roland Kirk before
replacing Joe Williams in the Count Basie Orchestra in 1961. He soon left after
being conscripted into the army.
After military service Thomas returned in 1964, he
resumed his music career, entertaining Presidents Kennedy and Johnson at their
inaugural balls. A move back to New York led to a fateful engagement in 1969.
"I was playing in Brooklyn with Randy Weston when Archie Shepp and Pharoah
Sanders came by," Thomas told Straight No Chaser magazine. "They
began to visit regularly and often jammed with us. Pharoah had this song called
`Pisces Moon' which he was playing every night as a theme in New York and he
asked me if I could put some lyrics to it. I came up with `The Creator Has a
Master Plan'. A classic was born."
In 1969, he
released his first solo album for Bob Thiele's Flying Dutchman label, “Spirits
Known and Unknown.” Thomas became best known for his work with Sanders,
particularly the 1969 song "The Creator Has a Master Plan" from
Sanders' Karma album.
Thomas's most distinctive device was that he often broke
out into yodeling in the middle of a vocal. This style has influenced singers
James Moody, Tim Buckley and Bobby McFerrin. He said in an interview that he
developed this style after he fell and broke his teeth before an important
show. Some of the vocal style is classified as 'jive singing'. (Ref: Leon
Thomas Blues Band album). Thomas saw music as a means of social commentary
during this period, saying, "You just have to be more than an entertainer.
How the blazes can you ignore what is happening?"
Through the 1970s, Thomas recorded a series of critically
acclaimed records for Flying Dutchman, and performed with Louis Armstrong ion
1970 also the bands of trumpeter Freddy Hubbard and guitarist Carlos Santana,
touring as a member of the Santana band in 1973. Thomas was voted best vocalist
by the readers of Downbeat magazine from 1970 to 1973.He later appeared on
recordings with saxophonist Gary Bartz and singer Jeri Brown. In the mid 1970s,
he adopted "Leon" as his middle name.
During the 1990s, Thomas's recordings of spiritually- and
African-influenced soul jazz resurfaced among record collectors and club
deejays, becoming known as "kosmigroov" music. On May 8, 1999, Thomas
died of heart failure, resulting from leukemia, at a Bronx hospital near his
home
According to Ben Ratliff of The New York Times, Thomas
had begun his career "as a straight blues-jazz singer" with a
"stout tenor voice", but by the mid 1960s, he "had begun to
spend time with young jazz musicians who were looking to Africa, the East and
meditation for musical material … Thomas developed his ululating singing style,
which has been compared to African pygmy and American Indian singing
techniques and which he later called 'soularphone.' He believed that his ancestors had given him his elastic throat articulation, he said, and henceforth always used it."
Robert Christgau wrote of the significance behind Thomas's vocal abilities in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981) "He has literally expanded the musical possibilities of the human voice. He is as powerful a jazz/blues singer as Joe Williams or Joe Turner, both of whom he occasionally resembles, as inventive a scatter as Ella Fitzgerald. But that's just the beginning, for despite the generation lag, Thomas beats Turner and Williams in their mode even while singing his own, and he turns scatting from a virtuoso trick into an atavistic call from the unconscious."
techniques and which he later called 'soularphone.' He believed that his ancestors had given him his elastic throat articulation, he said, and henceforth always used it."
Robert Christgau wrote of the significance behind Thomas's vocal abilities in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981) "He has literally expanded the musical possibilities of the human voice. He is as powerful a jazz/blues singer as Joe Williams or Joe Turner, both of whom he occasionally resembles, as inventive a scatter as Ella Fitzgerald. But that's just the beginning, for despite the generation lag, Thomas beats Turner and Williams in their mode even while singing his own, and he turns scatting from a virtuoso trick into an atavistic call from the unconscious."
(Edited from Wikipedia
& The Independent)
2 comments:
For “Leon Thomas – The Creator 1969-1973
(The Best Of The Flying Dutchman Masters)” go here:
https://www.upload.ee/files/10555964/Leon_Thomas.rar.html
1 Shape Your Mind To Die 5:21
2 Just In Time To See The Sun 2:58
3 It's My Life I'm Fighting For 10:10
4 The Creator Has A Masterplan 4:25
5 Let The Rain Fall On Me 5:27
6 China Doll 5:06
7 Bags' Groove 3:19
8 One 3:09
9 Come Along 3:03
10 Let's Go Down To Lucy's 4:25
11 Welcome To New York 4:09
12 Love Each Other 3:14
13 Balance Of Life (Peace Of Mind) 6:55
14 Um Um Um 5:22
15 Umbo Weti 9:23
Please note all mp3’s taken from red mp3 & YouTube.
Leon Thomas is very great
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