LEON THOMAS — Spirits Known and Unknown (review)

LEON THOMAS — Spirits Known and Unknown album cover Album · 1969 · Vocal Jazz Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Sean Trane
From what I know, SKAU is Thomas’s debut album, but also easily his best (IMHO), at least to the jazzheads into the Pharoah galaxy. Indeed, most, if not all, of Sanders’ band is present on the present, from the luscious piano of Liston to Cecil’s instantly recognizable bass and Spaulding’s typical flute, and even on one track, the master plays under the Little Rock alias.

Opening on a version of Pharoah’s Creator Has A Master Plan with Spaulding’s delightful flute, SKAU announces a certain musical softness that won’t always be confirmed by the lyrics throughout the album. These lyrics contrast with Leon Thomas’ soft crooner voice that sometimes shows his signature goaty-yodel, like in the following One (a live track, apparently) where some fast-scatting also appears among some wild arrangements. Echoes first opens on Spaulding’s flute that are shortly echoed by Thomas’ own, before he takes the mike. The track goes from soft to involved to return on the soft side, and certain dynamics (mainly flutes and percussions) can remind of Sun Ra. Closing the A-side is a version of Horace Silver’s Song For My Father, but obviously very much updated to fit the late 60’s moods. The flipside opens with the protest Damn Nam, which has echoes of Gill Scott-Heron, though this almost predates it. The lengthy Malcolm’s Gone is the centrepiece of the album, and has chaotic echoes of Tyner and Trane. The cover of Let Rain Fall On Me closes the album on a soft crooning note

The album comes with three bonus tracks, two of which come from a Fillmore East concert from the fall of the next year, both taken from an SNCC’s Rapalbum. The third track is a wild cover of Dizzy’s Night In Tunisia. I’m generally not a sung-jazz fan, but I must say that Leon Thomas is one of the singers that reconciles me with the “vocal jazz/crooner” genre, but it’s also partly because of who plays on this album, and the era in which it was recorded in. Indeed, Pharoah’s band in 69 was one of the last interesting places in jazz not heading to the JR/F direction, and they’re all present here, despite a less-extreme approach. A fairly good album that can be stocked close to your “new thing” section in your collection.
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