Pat Thomas: Hikmah
TAO Forms

Perhaps the most illuminating passage in the liner notes William Parker wrote for Pat Thomas's latest solo release is one that characterizes his piano as a “paintbrush painting poems.” On earlier recordings such as Plays the Music of Derek Bailey & Thelonious Monk (2008) and Pat Thomas Plays The Duke (2022), he idiosyncratically engaged with jazz masters; the eight pieces on Hikmah are all originals, however, dynamic, spiritually probing examinations of his psyche and the instrument itself. Whereas other pianists might assemble an album balancing respectful covers with originals, Thomas commits himself wholly to his personal vision and makes no concessions to others' listening desires.

He's more abstract expressionist than still-lifer, and his attack also calls the action painter to mind more than any methodical renderer of landscapes and portraits. For the Oxford-born Thomas, the keyboard is a canvas availing endless possibility and is bounded only by the imagination and technical ability of the pianist. Hikmah isn't without a quiet moment or two, but its improvised pieces function largely as lucid externalizations of Thomas's inner vision. It's also a natural fit for the NYC-based TAO Forms (his first for the label, too), whose releases traffic in jazz material of an intensely explorative and freethinking kind. Recorded at London's Fish Factory Studio on September 22, 2024, Hikmah is a document of who and what Thomas was on that day. No matter when a recording's captured, however, Thomas is always and entirely himself.

The Arabic album title translates as “wisdom,” and certainly Thomas has steadily acquired his share over the lifetime of study and creation that's accrued since his 1960 birth. As a longtime devotee of Sufism, his music is naturally informed by spiritual practice and manifests itself in the focused nature of his expression. Illustrative of that quality, a meditative undercurrent runs throughout the opening “Hikmah,” where lyrical gestures are offset by percussive splashes and insistent rhythmic flourishes. “The Shehu” finds Thomas pulling bluesy stride into the present with abstract parabolas in the right hand and a steady pulse in the left that's as much lurch as lope. Echoes of jazz history likewise emerge during the set-ending “Sheikh Amadou Bamba” when traces of themes past surface through the cubistic cracks and waves of notes roll like some geological force.

A number of pieces are titled after specific figures, including “For Joe Gallivan,” Thomas's aptly percussive tribute to the American jazz drummer. A gentler expression than others on the set, “For Toumani Diabaté” is named after the Malian kora player and sees the pianist giving reverent and articulate voice to the rumination. The nine-minute-plus piece also radically changes shape halfway through and leaves calm behind for playing that's acrobatic and eruptive. Titled after a Professor Emerita of English, American Studies, and Women's Studies at Temple University, “For Caroline L. Karcher” rumbles with authority and an energized attack that suggests genuine affection by the artist for the dedicatee. The fourth homage, “For McCoy Tyner,” sees Thomas honouring the iconic pianist with a powerful, physically engaged performance that merges the inner and outer workings of the instrument (the furious scratch and scrape of its inner strings is a sound not quickly forgotten). In a similar vein, Thomas plays "Luqman the Wise” entirely inside the piano, with its strings massaged and plucked by hand.

January 2026