Pat Thomas and Ahmed
★★★★★, Cafe Oto, Dalston

THE brilliant, soulful Antiguan-heritage pianist Pat Thomas is a truly loved son at Cafe Oto. So, to see him and hear him again at the Oto Yamaha Grand with the cosmopolitan quartet Ahmed after a long period of serious illness, deeply moved his listeners at his first comeback session. 

“Welcome home, Pat!” somebody shouted in the midst of long applause as his wheelchair braced the piano. Monk may have written his In Walked Bud for his fellow pianist friend Bud Powell, but this afternoon in Dalston it was “In Rode Pat.”

Ahmed Abdul Malik (1927-93), like Thomas, was a muslim jazz musician of special power. Born in Brooklyn of Vincentian parents, he played bass with Coleman Hawkins, Monk (hear him the 1967 — eight albums like Misterioso, In Action or Live at the Five Spot), Blakey and Coltrane — who advised him to form his own group, which he did, taking up playing the north African lute-like oud, as well as bass.

The band Ahmed is composed of Thomas, alongside the Derby saxophonist Seymour Wright, Parisian drummer Antonin Gerbal and Stockholm-born bassist Joel Grip — a true cosmos of improvised music, playing familiar tunes from their new album Ahmed Plays Monk.

Monk’s last performance in London in 1971 produced the three albums of The London Collection (Black Lion Records), one solo, and two with Art Blakey on drums and bassist Al McKibbon. 

They included two versions of Monk’s tune Evidence, originally titled Justice. Just hear how the Ahmed Quartet play Epistrophy, Bye-ya, Friday 13th, and a marathon performance of Evidence now-times on their record. 

The ghosts of George Floyd, of the martyrs of Gaza, the West Bank, of Venezuela, Beirut and Isfahan rise up over London with their notes, sounds of justice never to be silenced.

In the live performance Thomas played with all his customary fire and consciousness as the quartet ploughed into Monk’s Round Midnight, even though it was only 3pm and the May sun was shining outside. 

Grip’s deep, deep bowed bass surged below Wright’s grizzly, pulsating saxophone before Thomas came chiming in with Gerbal’s bell-like cymbals blazing urgently. As the minutes passed, an immense groove was built up, chorus after chorus, louder and louder and you wondered how and when it would ever stop.

I’ve heard the tune played a thousand times by a host of musicians but never like this, with this tempestuous power. A grey and white curley-haired terrier dog held on a lead by two little girls jumped up beside me and I found myself stroking her in time to Thomas’s rampaging keyboard runs and Wright’s gruff, growling, repetitious hornsong sounding like a one-man rookery on a foghorn and Antonin and Grip’s volcanic beat. It lasted 53 minutes. Ah, humans! What would Monk and Ahmed made of it all?

Pat Thomas plays Cafe Oto on June 15 with the Tony Oxley Orchestra, and June 23 with the Olie Brice Trio. For more information see: cafeoto.co.uk.

Ahmed Play Monk is released by OTOROKU.