Leon Thomas

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the actor, see Leon Thomas III.
Leon Thomas
Birth nameAmos Leon Thomas Jr.
Born(1937-10-04)October 4, 1937
East St. Louis, Illinois, U.S.
DiedMay 8, 1999(1999-05-08) (aged 61)
Bronx, New York
GenresFree jazz, blues, soul jazz
Occupation(s)Singer
Years active1950s–1970s
LabelsFlying Dutchman

Amos Leon Thomas Jr. (October 4, 1937 – May 8, 1999), known professionally as 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.[1]

Life and career

Leon Thomas was born Amos Thomas, Jr. on October 4, 1937, in

conscripted into the army.[3]

Thomas was discharged from the army in the late 1960s and resumed his music career, first working with avant-garde jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders.[3] In 1969, he released his first solo album for Bob Thiele's Flying Dutchman label. 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).[citation needed] 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?"[3]

Through the 1970s, Thomas recorded a series of critically acclaimed records for Flying Dutchman, and performed with the bands of trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and guitarist Carlos Santana,[3] touring as a member of the Santana band in 1973.[4] He later appeared on recordings with saxophonist Gary Bartz and singer Jeri Brown. In the mid-1970s, he adopted "Leon" as his middle name.[3]

During the 1990s, Thomas's recordings of spiritually- and African-influenced

Bronx hospital near his home.[1]

Appraisal

Thomas has been called the "John Coltrane of jazz vocalists". According to music essayist and yodel expert

ethnomusicological investigation but via ur-soul, or back-to-Africa spiritual pilgrimage", Plantenga said.[6]

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."[1] 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

the unconscious.[7]

AllMusic critic Thom Jurek, impressed especially by The Leon Thomas Album (1970), was mystified by "why this guy wasn't huge",[8] while Tom Hull said, "In a simpler time, he would have been a classic blues shouter."[9]

Discography

As leader

As sideman

With Pharoah Sanders

With Santana

With others

References

  1. ^ a b c Ratliff, Ben (May 14, 1999). "Leon Thomas, 61, Jazz Singer Known for 'Yodel'". The New York Times. Retrieved September 12, 2019. (subscription required)
  2. ABC-CLIO
    . p. 135.
  3. ^
    ISBN 1852271833
    .
  4. ^ Jazzsupreme Archived 2007-08-08 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ Plantenga 2013, p. 249.
  6. ^ Plantenga 2013, pp. 241–2.
  7. ISBN 089919026X
    . Retrieved March 16, 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
  8. ^ Jurek, Thom (n.d.). "Leon Thomas Album - Leon Thomas". AllMusic. Retrieved March 16, 2019.
  9. ^ Hull, Tom (April 2013). "Recycled Goods". Statis Multimedia. Retrieved July 16, 2020 – via tomhull.com.

Bibliography

External links
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