"Born 27 July 1960; Piano, electronics. Pat Thomas started playing at the age of 8 and studied classical music and played reggae. He began playing jazz at sixteen after seeing Oscar Peterson on television then listened to snatches of jazz on the radio before, in 1979, playing his first serious improvised gigs. From 1986 he played with Ghosts which was Pete McPhail and Matt Lewis.

In addition to programming his keyboards, Pat Thomas also utilises prerecorded tapes. He told Chris Blackford (1991), 'As far as the tapes are concerned I'll probably just sit in front of the TV and tape whatever's going on and so some editing afterward to decide what might be useful. ...But I don't actually put a label on each tape saying what's on there, so when I come to use them I don't know what I'm going to be playing. That obviously prevents me from setting things up. I pick them at random and see what happens. So I'm just as surprised as anybody else at what comes out'.

In 1988 he was awarded an Arts Council Jazz Bursary to write three new electroacoustic compositions for his ten-piece ensemble, Monads: Roger Turner and Matt Lewis, percussion; Pete McPhail, WX7 wind synthesizer; Neil Palmer, turntables; Phil Minton, voice; Phil Durrant, violin; Marcio Mattos, bass; Jon Corbett, trumpet; Geoff Searle, drum machines. The intention was to feature different aspects of electronics using improvisation so, for example, one piece - Dialogue - featured Pete McPhail and Neil Palmer, another concentrated on the interaction of percussionists and drum machines, and a third piece had Phil Minton and Jon Corbett improvising with a computer. The pieces were performed at the Crawley Outside-In Festival of new music in 1989.

Pat Thomas was invited by Derek Bailey to play in Company Week in 1990 and 1991 and he also took part in the Ist International Symposium for Free Improvisation in Bremen with the guitarist. He has been a member of the Tony Oxley Quartet (documented on Incus CD 15) and played in Oxley's Angular Apron along with Larry Stabbins, Manfred Schoof and Sirone at the 8th Ruhr Jazz Meeting and in the percussionist's Celebration Orchestra. He plays with Lol Coxhill in a range of combinations from duo to being a member of 'Before my time', is a member of Mike Cooper's Continental Drift, and he has a well established duo with percussionist Mark Sanders and a trio with Steve Beresford and Francine Luce. In 1992 Pat Thomas formed the quartet Scatter with Phil Minton, Roger Turner and Dave Tucker; funded by the Arts Council they toured the UK in 1993 and again at the beginning of 1997.

On the 'Festival circuit', Pat Thomas has appeared at: the Young Improvisors Festival at the Korzo Theatre, Den Haag (with Jim O'Rourke, Mats Gustafsson and Alexander Frangenheim); Angelica 95 in Bologna, Italy; the Stuttgart 5th Festival of Improvised Music 96 (with Fred Frith, Shelly Hirsch, Carlos Zingaro and others); and the 3rd International Festival 96 in Budapest (with Evan Parker, Phil Minton, John Russell and Roger Turner).

-EFI (http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/mthomas.html)
11/20/2024

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"Double Bassist Clayton Thomas was born 1976, in Hobart, Australia. Inspired by the sound, velocity and social movements of jazz, Clayton has dedicated his musical life to finding a personal truth that links his own cultural life as a white Australian, with the radical, far reaching pursuits found within the creative music. What he can't find as a bass player, he searches for in the organisation of unreasonably large ensembles.

Clayton Thomas relocated in Sydney, Australia, in 2014. Clayton is currently not a regular member of the Splitter Orchester, but he was part of the 2014 concert @ MaerzMusik and he'll also take part in the 2015 concerts in Berlin and Huddersfield."

-Splitter Orchester Website (http://www.berlinsplitter.org/index.php?article_id=104)
11/20/2024

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"Raymond Strid (born 1956 in Stockholm, Sweden) is a Swedish drummer in the genre of free jazz and the new European improvised music.When Strid picked up drumming, he was inspired by musicians like Han Bennink, Paul Lytton, and Tony Oxley. He started his musical career relatively late. His debut concert was in September 1977, after first playing with a variety of local bands in Stockholm. In 1988 he founded the 'GUSH' trio together with saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and the pianist Sten Sandell. Since that time Strid has played in a series of bands and projects, such as in the trio Guy/Gustafsson/Strid, Marilyn Crispell/Anders Jormin/Raymond Strid and the Free Jazz trio LSB with Fredrik Ljungkvist and Johan Berthling. In 2000 he initiated 'The Electrics' with Axel Dörner, Sture Ericson and Ingebrigt Flaten. The same year Strid joined the Barry Guy New Orchestra. Strid played at numerous festivals of free improvisation in Europe and North America. He also teaches in musical improvisation."-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Strid)
11/20/2024

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