{"title":"Pat Thomas","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePat Thomas is an author, scholar, musician, and music producer based in San Francisco. He founded a record label in 1988 and has released five solo records from 1987 to 1997. Additionally, he was a drummer and percussionist for Absolute Grey and Mushroom. Pat has produced reissues for Water and other labels, featuring vintage recordings from notable artists such as Allen Ginsberg and Elaine Brown. His writing about music has been featured in Mojo, Crawdaddy, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn his book \"Listen Whitey! The Sights And Sounds Of Black Power 1965-1975,\" Pat Thomas delves into the forgotten history of Motown's subsidiary label Black Forum and privately pressed Black Power soul singles. Through his research in Oakland, CA, he discovered rare recordings of speeches, interviews, and music by prominent activists like Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. He also served as a consultant for Stanley Nelson's PBS documentary \"The Black Panthers: Vanguard Of The Revolution.\" Pat has lectured at various universities worldwide.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTogether with [a522591], Pat curated the book \"Invitation To Openness: The Jazz \u0026amp; Soul Photography Of Les McCann 1960-1980\" in 2015. In 2017, his book \"Did It ! From Yippie To Yuppie: Jerry Rubin An American Revolutionary\" was published. He was also involved with [l275364] as\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"the-solar-model-of-ibn-al-shatir","title":"The Solar Model of Ibn Al-Shatir","description":"\u003cp\u003ePat Thomas returns to OTOROKU for his fourth collection of solo piano improvisations, this time recorded in a studio setting at London’s Fish Factory. For 25 years now, beginning with Nur (Emanem) and continuing through Al-Khwarizmi Variations (Fataka), The Elephant Clock of Al-Jazari (OTOROKU), and now The Solar Model of Ibn Al-Shatir, Pat Thomas has drawn on the Arabic world for titles for his solo piano work - specifically the long-standing Islamic tradition of astronomical invention. For Thomas, the work of the polymaths he dedicates his music to has been sidelined by Eurocentrism, just as the Arabic origin of “jass” and the scalar, intervallic and polyphonic contributions made by Arab musicians have been routinely overlooked. Islamic innovation is at the heart of Thomas’ solo projects and draws a direct link between his Sufi faith and a totally unique style of playing. Each of his solo piano records is a dedication - not just to the innovators Thomas names but to the beauty of the universe in all its complexities. Starting standing up with one hand inside the piano and one on the keys, ‘The Solar Model’ begins with single staccato bass notes appearing like chondrites in the darkness, occasionally tumbling towards a rhythm and then falling out of it. Metallic string work starts to pull towards an unseen centre and eventually notes from the upper registers appear, clear and light. With both hands drawn to the keys, Thomas builds towards scintillating beauty, carried through “The Laws of Motion” and propelling us towards the A-side closer, “For George Saliba”. Notes fall rapidly, colliding to form a crowded core with a warped sort of bebop in its middle - distinctive Pat with a nod to the Duke’s groove. The whole landscape of the A side swings with this one movement, until its energy is spent on one last sweeping rotation. On the B-side, “The Oud of Ziryab” notes to the instrument maker who added a 5th pair of strings to the Oud. The single bass notes of the first side are swapped for clusters, bursting together and decaying in space. Making use of the sustain pedal and the silence of a studio setting, it’s one of the most open, lush recordings of Thomas at the piano we’ve heard - more Muhal Richard Abrams than Monk, the lower end thundering under rapid, crystalline blues. “For Mansa Musa” brings back a swing instantly recognisable as Pat, with a huge euphoric lift halfway that crowns the record but the album’s end title “The Birds are Singing” is more celestial, more chromatic - a reminder that the spiritual matters just as much as the physical for Thomas. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Otoroku","offers":[{"title":"Black LP.","offer_id":50380152242507,"sku":"2213785","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD.","offer_id":50380152471883,"sku":"2217624","price":13.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Pat_Thomas__The_Solar_Model_of_Ibn_Al-Shatir_ROKU040_e8ead871_thumbnail_409.jpg?v=1726209506"},{"product_id":"desafinado-rsd-2024","title":"Desafinado - RSD 2024","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n                            This product is a Record Store Day exclusive title and is not available to pre-order.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n                            To buy in-store: 8am, 20\/04\/2024 (Record Store Day).\u003cbr\u003e\n                            To buy online: 8pm, 22\/04\/2024. (Subject to availability).\u003cbr\u003e\n                            Don’t forget: Click 'Notify Me' to be the first to know about its availability online. It also helps us to place accurate orders so that we can please as many of you as possible on the day.\u003cbr\u003e\n                            \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRare 60s Bossa Nova LP arranged and conducted by Lalo Schiffrin. Remastered.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Poppydisc","offers":[{"title":"Green LP","offer_id":50425237143883,"sku":"2181381","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Desafinado_Original_Album_1962_-_Mono_Version_401d1072_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726788318"},{"product_id":"my-week-beats-your-year-encounters-with-lou-reed","title":"My Week Beats Your Year: Encounters with Lou Reed","description":"\u003cp\u003eDuring his first major sit-down with the music press in 1977, between claiming all his songs were about guilt and revenge, Elvis Costello casually remarked, \"I don't really listen to Lou Reed's records, but I never miss an interview with him.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIndeed, for all his publicly expressed loathing of the press in general and music journalists in particular, during his long career as a rock artist, Lou Reed was never less than entertaining in his dealings with the Fourth Estate. In fact, one could go so far as to claim that, for Lou, the press became as much an implement of expression as singing, composing, and playing music. In a style at times very much informed by his mentor Andy Warhol, Reed could play the media like a Marshall-amped Stradivarius.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTo the majority of his fans, the apotheosis of Reed's relationship with the press, and most prominently regarded to this day, was the series of combative tête-à-têtes between Lou and the late great music journalist Lester Bangs, published in CREEM Magazine during the 1970s.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eMy Week Beats Your Year: Encounters with Lou Reed\u003c\/i\u003e features 30+ interviews spanning his solo career, from the golden era of print rock-journalism, to the first online blogs. The compilation is one fan's humble attempt to move beyond the Bangs canon, and delve deeper into the distance and intimacy, cactus and mercury, that constituted Lou's post-Velvet Underground public media image.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis anthology will be an intimate portrait of Reed who, in addition to being notoriously prickly (to put it mildly), was also intelligent, articulate, and deeply passionate about what was important to him, both as a person and as a creative artist.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hat and Beard","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":50448680157515,"sku":"1076956","price":31.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/423d2cd5-046f-4f51-a586-8acce32276b2_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727095065"},{"product_id":"stage-two","title":"Stage Two","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eStage Two \u003c\/i\u003efrom 1976 comes swinging right out the gate with a set of nine monster tunes, heavy drum-breaks, reggae infused afro-beats, funky bass lines, Wah-wah-psyche guitars and lyrics that straddle between a sense of melancholy and frantic urgency. This is a quintessential Pat Thomas (backed by the Marijata band) record that every serious collector or fan needs to have in his collection.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOriginally released in 1976 on Gapophone Records Ghana, Tidal Waves Music now proudly presents the first official reissue of this rare album (original copies tend to go for large amounts on the secondary market...that is if you’re lucky enough to come across one). This is also the first time \u003ci\u003eStage Two\u003c\/i\u003e is being released outside of the African continent.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tidal Waves Music","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50451495485771,"sku":"1119466","price":37.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"Clear LP","offer_id":50451495780683,"sku":"1130109","price":32.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/81d98ffa-6e7f-4bb2-880e-e771e85d6053_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727127322"},{"product_id":"new-jazz-jungle-remembering","title":"New Jazz Jungle: Remembering","description":"\u003cp\u003eFeedback Moves returns with a vinyl reissue of Pat Thomas’ New Jazz Jungle: Remembering. The album was originally released on CD in 1997, at a time when Pat had already spent years playing on the free improvisation circuit with the likes of Lol Coxhill and Derek Bailey. Thomas is largely known as a jazz and improvising pianist, but can be heard using electronics as far back as 1989 on an electro acoustic work called Monads and on the Bailey-led Company ’91 recordings. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThomas identified jungle’s weirdness and intensity and saw a space open for his own interpretation, on New Jazz Jungle: Remembering he utilises his classical training and knowledge of the tonal systems used by 20th century composer’s Schoenberg and Webern, and fuses that with his earlier experiences using electronics, keyboards \u0026amp; sampling techniques. What we end up with is 10 tracks of bass heavy jungle breaks, which are intersected with vocal and orchestral samples, and layers of percussion rotating at varying time signatures. It’s in this fashion that the album seems to present itself: in layers. Layers of samples, keyboards and FX, deployed at varying speeds, never losing their intensity. The re-issue of this lost classic comes at a time when Thomas continues to go from strength to strength, having recently released various solo and collaborative works with a wide range of musicians and projects such as Matana Roberts, Elaine Mitchener, حمد [Ahmed], Black Top, XT and many more.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Feedback Moves","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50466099691851,"sku":"2002131","price":26.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/unnamed_1_29dfe6e4_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727304680"},{"product_id":"coming-home-1","title":"Coming Home","description":"\u003cp\u003eGhanaian highlife master and 'The Golden Voice Of Africa', Pat Thomas, returns with his first full career retrospective on Strut, covering his late '60s big band highlife recordings through to the 'burger highlife' movement of the early '80s. Growing up with music around him (\"my uncle, King Onyina, was an important highlife musician\"), Thomas was inspired to become a singer after hearing vocalist Joss Aikins: \"He sang with Broadway Dance Band and Decca in Ghana chose him to sing with any group that came into their studios.\" When a new incarnation of Broadway Dance Band was created in '67, led by Ebo Taylor, Thomas received his first big break. \"Ebo started to write new songs. I added the lyrics and sang them and it worked well.\" The partnership with Taylor would become one of the enduring forces in Ghanaian music during the '70s, creating a fresh, progressive new highlife sound. They played with the Blue Monks band before, in 1974, forming Sweet Beans with the backing of Ghana's Cocoa Marketing Board: \"The album, 'False Lover', was the first under my own name and my first for Gapophone,\" Pat reflects. \"Reggae was \"on\" at that time - Jimmy Cliff was the guy - so I tried reggae fusions and brought in some soul.\" The album established Thomas across Ghana. Sweet Beans disbanded but the musicians stayed together as Marijata. \"The guys initially used Jewel Ackah as their vocalist but they involved me and I re-vocalled the album. This became the 'Pat Thomas Introduces Marijata' LP. At that time, I would go to George Prah at Gapophone to ask for money and he would say, 'if you want me to pay you, go and write a song!' So, tracks like 'Coming Home' came about that way, written on the spot.\" A second Marijata album followed before a damaging coup in Ghana in 1979. \"Jerry Rawlings' \"house-cleaning\" was designed to stop corruption but it seriously damaged our country's music culture.\" Thomas left for Berlin and stayed true to his highlife roots, becoming the first Ghanaian to record highlife there. \"In Ghana, people ex-pats living in Germany called themselves 'burgers', so the scene became 'burger highlife'.\" Thomas travelled to Togo and London, before settling in Canada: \"I ended up there for ten years playing for universities, Ghanaian societies and festivals.\" Pat is now back with Kwashibu Area Band and touring worldwide: \"Today, highlife has become the world's music and I am proud to still bring it to so many people.\" \u003cbr\u003e2CD - Double CD features exclusive photos and a full interview with Pat Thomas.\u003cbr\u003e3LP - Triple LP set with CD Version features exclusive photos and a full interview with Pat Thomas.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Strut","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50486661841227,"sku":"405606","price":5.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/46ea85a5-5fa9-4139-a61a-07bc8c3479d1_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727613238"},{"product_id":"wadud-most-loving","title":"Wadud (Most Loving)","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis very special and wonderful solo performance by Oxford based Pat Thomas was recorded in Dublin during the first ever Reception Weekend event at the Complex. The piano Pat was playing had been very unique as it had copper plating on the interior giving the piano and strange and magical resonance. Nyahh Records is very grateful and excited to be able to share this performance with the world and to have Pat Thomas added to our list of artists. Pat Thomas (b1960) studied classical piano from aged 8 and started playing Jazz from the age of 16. He has since gone on to develop an utterly unique style - embracing improvisation, jazz and new music. He has played with Derek Bailey in Company Week (1990\/91) and in the trio AND (wit hSteve Noble) – with Tony Oxley’s Quartet and Celebration Orchestra and in Duo with Lol Coxhill. The list goes on. He is currently recording and tour with Free Jazz ensemble Ahmed. \"Sartorially shabby as Thomas may be, and on first impression even rather stolid, he has a somewhat imperious charisma that’s immediately amplified when he starts to play. Unlike other pianists whose virtuosity seems to be racing ahead of their thought processes Thomas always seems supremely in command of his gift, and his playing, no matter how free and ready to tangle with abstraction, always carries a charge of authoritative exactitude.\" - The Jazzmann\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Nyahh","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":53290872602955,"sku":"R8381-9698","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/PatThomas-Wadud.jpg?v=1756740692"},{"product_id":"hikmah-tx","title":"Hikmah","description":"\u003cp\u003eHikmah is an astonishing solo piano work from virtuosic and far-ranging sound scientist; deep and compassionate thinker and musical treasure: Pat Thomas. Pat Thomas was Born in Oxford, UK to Antiguan parents on July 27, 1960. Interestingly, just over 4 months separate his birth to that of fellow modern piano master Matthew Shipp (Dec 7, 1960) - whose The Piano Equation was TAO Forms inaugural release. Thomas is most certainly among the Black Mystery School Pianists of which Shipp elucidates in the title essay of his recently published first book.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tao Forms","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":53642508271947,"sku":"R9314-7891","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP - Black","offer_id":53642508304715,"sku":"R9314-3894","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/0642623801918.jpg?v=1760710382"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/collections\/test_9af2c146_thumbnail_4096_0e9ece9b-d38d-4758-96d6-e0fcc9ba515d.jpg?v=1726209477","url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/de\/collections\/pat-thomas.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}