As radical an interpretation of Duke Ellington's work as you will search long and hard to find anywhere - Black Top's Pat Thomas here live at the Lit and Phil in Newcastle upon Tyne last year in staggering form. Sounding Matthew Shipp-like on 'Creole Love Call' the Oxford pianist takes a lot of risks with the material in the sense that he is not afraid to deconstruct and recompose such canonical work using the classic tunes as inspiration and the method of free improvisation as a tool beyond his arrangements. Only the less than ideal way the piano is recorded combined with the room acoustics muddy the sound a bit too much. Not an overly reverential approach at all but far more valid than some timid geezer at the Joanna with a bow tie terrified that a note is out of place tumbling in all soup-down-his-tie. 'Come Sunday' moves closer to most to the melody but even here Thomas chops and jolts at the familiar strains of the piece and manages to conjure a spell that is unique.
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