an interview with Leon Thomas

an interview with Leon Thomas

(Leon Thomas first became known to us through Pharoah Sanders’ album Karma (Impulse). His near-yodel, “the moaning of spirits known and unknown” as it has been called, fascinated both myself and many others. It was like the crying out of the father after the son and a million other everyday occurences; immediately relatable, as real and intense as Sander’s own work.

The influence of Thomas has not gone unnoticed in either jazz or rock circles. Tim Buckley is said to be patterning his new act after Thomas’ vocal style. And Leon is featured on two new albums; his own Spirits Known and Unknown (Flying Dutchman) and Pharoah Sanders’ latest, Jewels of Thought (Impulse). The Pharoah Sanders group, featuring Leon Thomas, is perhaps the first group which has made the New Music relatable for white rock audiences. (Others who might be mentioned in the same context are Miles Davis new group, Tony Williams’ Lifetime and Albert Ayler’s album New Grass).

Definitely a vanguard performer, Thomas discusses here some of the elements which make up what has been variously called everything from The New Music to avante garde jazz to a jazzrock fusion. At any rate, all it really is is a Black man discussing Black Music. That’s enough. -Dave Marsh.)

CREEM: To go back a little bit, the first time I ever remember hearing your name was from (Pharoah Sanders album) Karma. Who were you with before that?

THOMAS: Well, I recorded with Mary Lou Williams and (Count) Basie. I worked with Basie about two years.

CREEM: How long ago was that?

THOMAS: That was about sixty...umsixty-five, sixty-three to sixty-five. And with Andy Weston, Roland Kirk, with Roland Kirk mostly. And Tom Scott. And recorded with Mary Lou, did some concerts with her and did a live recording at Carnegie Hall. Then playing and gigging around; subsequently hooking up with Pharoah.

CREEM: How did that happen? Had you met Pharoah previously?

THOMAS: Yes, I’d known Pharoah since he was with ‘Trane. And we’d played and we’d liked each other, you know. Then we lost track ol each other. I went to the West Coast with Basie and when I came back he’d recorded Tauhid. And when he saw me, he told me he had me in mind but he couldn’t find me. He though we ought to do some things together. I told him “Yeah, those tunes are really familar to me. I really understand what you’re trying to do on Tauhid. So he said we should try some things together.

And we talked it over and the next thing we got together the band and just went ahead and did it. CREEM: Yeah, what Pharoah attempts on Tauhid is much like what your style is...What you do with your voice is like what he tried, only a step further and a step better.

THOMAS: Well, he’s very aware of the voice, he’s trying to get a lot of different sounds out of the horn. Yes, he’s learning how to do things like slurring on the horn, things like trying to slur and get a different tone. Experiments. You have to becomeaware of tones between tones and you have to do a lot of slurring on the horn. Trying to get a human sound, man. He’s really trying to bring it to its rawest expression. And that would be a voice-like quality.

CREEM: How did you develop that technique? THOMAS: It’s always been there. I’ve never utilized it as much as I do now, except when doing the blues, to accentuate the hollers and what not. And as I become more oriented to an African sound, and began to research, I came across this 5 record in the Columbia Masterworks series, that has a lot of people in it doing a yodel or throat articulation. And, primarily, the pygmies have been involved in that, so I’ve got a lot of pygmy records. These are all things that I have been doing and hope to do, you know.

In fact there’s a couple of lullabies that are fantastic and I was able to do them and incorporate them. And do it inwardly and outwardly until I became totally free and was able to express any sound or any note. In this form.

I’ve been trying to use the yodel or throat articulation in my music because it was a break away from the dramatical approach. Until you just get sounds.

Now what the pygmies were doing, they weren’t doing it as a creative thing, they had set patterns. And I used this as a springboard. And the combination of the two gave me the freedom to go in any direction I wanted to go and make any sound possible. Instantaneously. Which I guess is a very modern point of expressing the same thing. CREEM: Is there a flow, do you think, from what the African music is like, up to what you’re doing? THOMAS: More and more so. I’m gonna get closer and cl oser to it the more I sing, within the context of the contemporary sound. That’s why I’m emphasizing the conga player in the group, and sometimes even the piano player and the bass player and the regular drummer will put down their instruments and play rhythm instruments also. So we can get the pure sounds, which are actually the drums and the voice. Without any instruments in between it’s a more original approach. And it’s more authenticity, the way I feel.

There are volumes and volumes of things that can be done on this if a person is aware of what he’s trying to do and where he comes from. So, with this conga player, we won’t go too far straight because he has all the research known.

CREEM: You’re trying to expand the possibilities with the voice.

THOMAS: Yes, within modern frameworks and ancient frameworks. Because I find myself trying to put some of the things that 1 have into what I am now. See what I can do with it.

CREEM: What Pharoah and ‘Trane and the others are trying to do with their horns is similar to what you’re trying^ to do with your voice?

THOMAS: Well, they began to broaden their research and their sources of reference. They began to listen to themselves for precedents, you know. Find out who they were. And in doing so they came upon the music of the Uturi Forest, which is a part of the forest in the Congo, where the pygmies live. I’m sure they had some of the same albums and I’ve now got the entire series of them. It’s an endless source of material you can draw from. They heard the music of the forest, especially Eric (Dorphy) and ‘Trane, they began to get the makimbo, or in some places its called a yodel and began to use multitonal effects on their horn. Trying to simulate the same sound. The pygimies do it in round forms so the patterns are endless.

And this is where the makimbo comes in. It’s kind of hard to give it a metre form, but it’s a cross between 5/4, 7/4 and 7/6. Coltrane used it in some things, he used different drummers, two drummers simultaneously. He had Elvin Jones and he had Rashied Ali. The beat is the same, that is the bottom beat is the same but from the bottom beat a cycle is created in sound. At one time you can listen to one drummer and play that way, or listen to the other drummer and go that way. Or somewhere in between.

And he (Coltrane) was just trying to get a multidirectional approach. But, before he could really explore all the possibilities, he passed on. But he was getting closer and closer. He - even used a conga player and a voice on a couple of things. Trying to check it out, searching.

CREEM: There is the mystical element, that was predominant in the latter works of Coltrane and is present in the works of Pharoah. Do you attack things from the same stance in regard to that. THOMAS: Maybe not from the same stance, because, once again, there’s a little more freedom given to the voice. And they were transmitting thfeir form of metaphysical and mystical approach to music with the tools they had. And my tool, so far, has been myself, primarily. My voice, primarily. I haven’t picked up or appended any extensions. So you don’t really want anything between yourself...Like, an American drummer plays the tune with the sticks but he doesn’t know how to control his hands. See, its a different thing entirely.

Like, he has some training but there’s a mental and physical body discipline. He might have to take a course of philosophy that’s very akin to this such as body and muscle control. One drummer I know who is very adept is also a fifth grade Kung Fu. Which means he could play for days and days on his drums but still caress it like a woman and still have the endless muscle power to play like a hummingbird wings if necessary. Which shows the value and support of any philosophy as long as it has the ability to control the will in support of the imaginatio n.

CREEM: Do the pygmies and other peoples of the forest use more instuments than just the voices and drums?

THOMAS: Yea h, they had flutes and that instrument that Buffy Ste. Marie plays, the mouthow., and they have a thumb piano. I’m learning how to play that now, because I know a guy that makes them. My conga player as a matter of fact. I’m learning parts and actual melodies of songs. Playing an instrument seems to be an easy thing but when you learn to control those thumbs it’s another thing all together. And them sometimes you try and play it this way, turn it over and play it with the fingers.

CREEM: That’s one thing that’s very hard to understand, for people who come from rock and roll, that the element of control is*the most important element in your music.

THOMAS: That’s it. See, because actually rhythm is an implied statement in itself, even without melody. And rhythm added to counterrhythm is set, because it’s set endlessly; within polyphonic structures you can just listen to the drums alone. Then, on top, as in the contemporary blending, horns and harmony and melody, it makes it even more interesting because you find the drummers who can bring their cultural approach into the modem day thing. But you find really the most adept drummers, drummers per se, cultural and otherwise, don’t like jazz and rock situations because there’s personal dynamics involved and people vary. You see, it’s a very set thing you play in a rhythm pattern; in order for me to sound good, on top of my bongos there must be two drummers, in between, playing an exact rhythm over and over and over. It may sound like it’s monotonous, but in a cyclic approach, it has variations within it. But it must be exact, so that other things that would do what they would do, know where they are. So, with so much improvisational aspect now, and what they call “freedom”, the drummers no longer want to be content with playing that rhythm and the emphasize cybal crashes and the bass drum and the decibels on other instruments are up so that everything seems to be going up by itself. And it can be a distortional thing.

CREEM: Which is a lot of what happens in rock and roll.

THOMAS: And a lot of times in jazz. Because the drummer is playing so many things and the bass player’s playing so many things. And there are so many chords to play. Whereas you find that even in Latin American music, which is very similar to the music from Ghana, they have no more than three or four chord changes but it’s rhythmically put so there’s no startling change. You really have to be united to know your improvisational approach because it’s going to be a challenge each time to do something different. But a lot of times, in music nowadays, one guy doesn’t know what he’s going to do from one chord to another. And they call that free expression.

CREEM: How do you work with your group and how do you work with Pharoah’s group? Do you have set compositions?

THOMAS: It’s a little bit freer than that. We might change it. Sometimes he starts it, sometimes I start it, it depends on what part of the program its in. We have long versions and short versions of certain tunes. A different way you can play.

It depends on whether we use African drummers or sometimes we use just five pieces. Then it has more of an approach to feature the group aspect. It’s always like a new way. Even though we may be doing a tune we keep but we keep messin’ around. It’s pretty much shaped for the occasion, like some of the Indian music. Real surrealism, it’s fresh to everybody.

CREEM: One of the things I wanted to talk about was your reception by the young white rock audiences. I really wonder whether the people who made it had any idea what an influential record Karma was, at least here?

THOMAS: Again, it was almost Latin, because it uses a very very minimal amount of chords. Very very few chords. With much rhythm implied and much softness and subtlety with the tempo and the use of dynamics that had been used before from nothing to a raging inferno back to the calm sea again. Like, picking up a seashell at different times.

I think the rhythm thing is what really got to the kids, the hypnotic East, Near-East, Far-East blending, like some of the Sufi, Hindu music or like the Indian raga or Ceylon or many different things, it was more or less the fact that...Coltrane had done a tune similar to that, some time ago, called A Love Supreme. Which used the same rhythm pattern and different notes.

It was really strange because each night I had a different set. I’d be inspired to do a different set of words until I realized that I had a whole set of lyrics. For awhile, the “yay-yay-yay-yay-yay”, was the only thing I sang other than the wordless improvisation. You see, it’s a simple melody and it’s something you can remember and it has the right mathematical formula to tune in on everybody’s wavelengths. It’s hard to resist it. CREEM: Was that a concious attempt to make the music more relateable?

THOMAS: It was more or less some kind of inspirational thing that occured. A spiritual involvement, in the music itself. You see, all music is just, is always there just waiting on musicians who can hear it. Music creates the musician much more than the musician creates the music. And the music brought us together for a unique thing.

We were all playing somewhat different things before we got together but each with his ingredient makes for a new whole. And what is happening is that a spiritual involvement using a set musical expression. Using that you communicate that to those who are willing to hear. And it was just time. And it’s sincere so there’s a responsive chord anywhere. If everybody gets what’s implied in the message it won’t be too hard to find.

CREEM: Wh at kind of people go to your gigs. THOMAS: I’ve been in New York eleven or twelve years, since ’58. Some people are aware, you know, to what it is. Like different groups and I get new people and then the new found thing, people that are becoming more aware of themselves, they come around Slugs. We’ve had a really tremendous following around there since the first night we hooked up.

It was really nice to see. They bring us incense and cakes and I had a couple of people from Quee ns come up and give me a pair of beautiful tiedye s. They were Baba lovers. And they got the message and they gave me a gift of a tiedyed tee shirt. Which is hip, it comes down through the years, people showing their acceptance of an artist. CREEM: How many places are there for your group to play?

THOMAS: To do what we want to do, it’s very strange, ’cause nightclubs aren’t it, and there aren’t enough concert halls, at least there haven’t been enough arranged. There’s just gonna have to be a semi-concert hall approach to it. In other words, a pre-arranged promotion with an aware gathering using available facilities.

CREEM: Have you considered ballroom dates? THOMAS: If you could create listening rooms in ballrooms, or something like that. We wouldn’t have to go so far as to worry about what kind of club, as long as the audiences are aware. The only thing that ever supports the music is an aware audience and with more organization, it could be done where the people were prepared and you could come and play and be heard. People could be heard themselves plus the different forms of media and being moved by the music.

You have to create those kinds of situations; we do high school auitoriums one place, a club that’s closed on one night and with special invitation to those who would really be aware. Maybe a library, maybe a lobby of an administration building of a college campus.

When I lived in Los Angeles we were just getting different places, like the “Guys and Dolls” club on Crenshaw Boulevard and we just threw a cultural experience from two in the afternoon through seven. With the actors doing their things, the dancers doing their thing. The big bands, collabrative bands like Horace Tapscott’s, the smaller bands. Sometimes we’d just pass out flutes to the audience and invite them to join in, on a rhythmic type thing. The people could just be part of the experience rather than just being the audience...A lot of people used to be around, revolutionaries, erstwhile hustlers, dancers playwrights...a lot of people who would just hang out. And we would get out there and just do it, you know?

It would be a full evening and people made some money. People got hip to it and started wanting to put on their current shows, fucked it all up and commercialized it to the point where they didn’t even want to have it,for themselves, they wanted to have it for people who were working at night. The clubs just couldn’t stand it. CREEM: How did your style develop?

THOMAS: You see, I’ve never had any training at all. You see, the more natural the approach is, the more it’s going to be akin to something else somewhere else. Usually a structured formalized form of teaching has direct aspects behind it. And has direct origins behind it. And it doesn’t flow from natural sources. Usually you are taught by a frustrated singer and it’s a lot harder to get to where your roots are. You get their roots but it’s harder to get yours.

CREEM: How did you first come to search for that?

THOMAS: I’ve been doing it all my life. I didn’t know it, though. Before I ever really became a singer I used to play bongos and sing with the guys. I became involved with the Afro-Cuban approach, Latin structures, things like bongos and “Night in Tunisia”.

CREEM: Does that fit you into any militant political perspective.

THOMAS: Anything, everything a person does is political. It’s impossible to be human and not be political. But I would say that mine is more spiritual than political. Because there must be spiritual guidance for the direct timing of actions. CREEM: Do you align yourself with Black Liberation movements in general, then?

THOMAS: I align myself with liberation. Period. Because liberation comes in many forms. All I want to do is fix it so a few more stomachs can be full each night. Not so much a piece of the pie, I got a recipe for the bakery.