UNKNOWN..? He is my favorite. Never get enough to hear him playing. I have an archtop gibson that once belonged to him. The soul of Master René is in this guitar. (R.I.P.)
So glad you speak about one of my favourite guitar player ! He's incredible in Nardis with the Eddy Louiss organ trio and in Stan Getz's Dynasty (dum dum dum just kills) !
Nice surprise, Jens! Rene Thomas had/has quite a following in Montreal. A hip player who was ahead of his time and definitely overlooked. Last year on Christmas eve I was graced with the chance to meet Rene's daughter on a bus ride to the western most part of the island of Montreal. I was the sole passenger for the last half of the trip... and she was the bus driver. A delightful woman with some wonderful stories of her father. Great video & topic! Thanks!!!
@@JensLarsen An alto sax player who I've played with for decades has an older brother who is well known for his documentaries and journalism. I think I'll pass the idea on to him. It can't hurt! Thanks for mentioning the idea. If any interest is there I'll keep you posted. :-)
Oh comme c est touchant RENE THOMAS est originaire de ma ville Liège Belgique ou il est très apprécié et encore écouté Je sais qu il est parti+ NEW YORK 50/60 pour retrouver BOBY JASPAR qui lui avait epouse DEARIE BLOSSOMS grande pianiste de jazz une américaine Mais René a préféré vivre au Canada près de sa sœur aînée qui s y était établie son mari un italien avait apris les basses de la guitare 🎸 guitare 🎸 🎸 à René lorsqu il avait 10 ans il lui a fait connaître DJANGO REINHARTS et à 13 ans il était déjà dans une formation Il y a toujours ici un saxophoniste ROBERT JEANNE qui malgres sont âge est toujours très bon musicien et fait toujours des concerts il a joué avec René et en parle toujours avec une grande affection Si vous croiser sa fille remettez lui nos amitiés
Absolutely overlooked. All of his work is excellent. Lou Bennett’s Enfin! , The live album with Pony Poindexter, TPL and the Bobby Jaspar Quartet. Oh and the Eddy Louis album with Kenny Clarke. Nice video!
Jens, many thanks for this excellent discussion of one of my heroes! With "Like Someone In Love," you've chosen a very representative stylistic illustration, as usual. Chord melody being my focus, Rene is, as you might guess, one of only a very few players with a primarily single-string/note soloing style that I'm heavily into -- probably because he outlines the chords so beautifully, but not necessarily in an expected way. His use of arpeggios, which you discuss, always really impresses me. A very insightful dissection of Rene's genius!
Thank you Jens for this interesting look at Rene Thomas' style. Larry Coryell and John McLaughlin recorded one of Rene's songs, "Rene's Theme", on Larry's album Spaces in 1970, as a blistering acoustic guitar duo. Will you please consider featuring Larry Coryell in a future video?
Yes, not largely known, a truly amazing player. Rene played so expressively with so much feeling and passion. One only has to listen to his guitar work on the song, You’ve Changed, from the ALBUM by EDDY LOUISS, KENNY CLARKE, RENE THOMAS. Would be nice if you could analyze and do a lesson for that piece.
Hi Jens, great idea to help discover Rene Thomas, among others I especially like his album in trio with french organist Eddy Louiss and bebop drummer Kenny Clark. Another great guitar player is Jmmy Gourley, who lived a lot in Paris, and was strongly influenced by Jimmy Raney (himself another monument, his hard-bop lines with Stan Getz on the Concord records are unparalleled imho)
RENE THOMAS never lived in Brussels but was born and lived in Liège (Luik) where he used to play with Bobby Jaspar (ts) and Jacques Pelzer (as, fl), other natives from Luik. He could n't read music, everything by head included Sonny's big band ... He loved Jimmy Rainey. He played in trio with the organist Lou Bennet or Eddie Louis (fr) and Kenny Clarke. He played with bassist Benoit Quersin from Brussels.
Nice! When I found jazz it was alot of Rene Thomas and Django Reinhardt! :D Would be awesome to see you talk about Toots Thielemans Bluesette, or Coltranes Giant Steps. Thanks for everything!
Hi Jens, thank's a lot for your great content always! I just rediscovered René Thomas after 30 years not listening to him. I realize now how great he really was (which I didn't when I was still young and foolish!)! I see in his videos that René is sweeping down and upwards. Do you know if he plays with restrokes when he alternates? That, I wasn't able to pick up. I'm an aternate picker (no reststrkes) and I'm getting into sweeping because I've realized that is close to imposible to play up tempo Parker/Bird/Bud Style Bebop lines without it. Shurely, René is someone to learn from, since he is playing real bebop with great phrasing and timing! Thank's!
Excellent lines! Hadn’t known about him so thanks. About the lydian dominant sound in the last line - don’t know what he was thinking but I’d just be thinking of it as a natural 7th color note on the Fm7. Gives a melodic (or harmonic I guess) minor sound over the iim7, which is ok because CST wasn’t invented yet!
Thanks for the recommendation Jens! Rene Thomas was certainly one of the jazz guitar greats who were often overlooked. On a side note, I was wondering if you would know any Danish jazz guitarists who give lessons that are as good as yours? I'm interested in taking some lessons there as I'll be travelling there next year. Cheers.
Check Eddy Louiss Kenny Clarke René Thomas, CY Records, 1968.New ed : Eddy Louiss trio, Dreyfus Jazz, 1991 and also the quartet with Stan Getz nearly all the music played is by Eddy Louiss. Other overlooked guitar player : Bill Harris.
I thought maybe you got the new issue of Guitarist ...there’s an article on the Gibson 175 that mentions Rene so I searched for his name and this video popped up in Google. Whoa. . . . Timely indeed!
René is well regarded and not forgotten particularly amongst european guitar players: in his time was there a finer european player outside of Django?. After there was Louis Stewart Philip Catherine up to the masters of today Wolfgang Muthspiel Ulf Wakenius Lage Lund.. But he did not record a lot which kind of limit his exposure. Could Doug Raney be considered a european player since Copenhagen was his home?
I never really him heard mentioned around here, I guess that is what I base that on. I would probably consider Doug an american even if he lived most of his life in Denmark :)
I never heard of Rene Thomas. I'll have to check him out. Are you familiar with Koinania? I enjoy listening to them. My favorite is More Than A Feeling.
Jens, can you do a video on Howard Roberts? Certainly not a hard bopper, but HR is a Dirty Guitar Player is filled with fluid, bluesy lines. One Note Samba and/or Lil' Darlin are well played.
Hey Jens, love this lesson, but (and I hate to be That Guy ) but I think you're playing something different in the last two bars at 8:11over the Eb7, and the last note in bar 14 - is that Ab or Bb? Sorry. I think I'm nitpicking!
A liege d où RENE THOMAS est originaire ET TRÈS APPRECIE Nous avons créer une MAISON DU JAZZ Ou il y a des conférences des cours de l histoires du jazz la possibilités de revoir des documents trop rares malheureusemnt l epoque ne conservait pas toujours les jams d enfer helas ... Ou nous nous efforçons rassemblé garder et de perpetuer la mémoires de ses grands jazzmens Liégeois partis trop tôt Qui ont eut des amis jazzmen internstionaux qui ont séjourner chez nous .....nous avons aussi u festival du jazz a LIEGE BRUXELLES ET DE SAXOPHONE a Dinant ville d adolphe SAX
He was a great player for sure, but its still hard for me to swallow how much vocab he just took from Dad nearly verbatim. As an example compare this version of Another you prior to the arrival of Jimmy Raney in Paris th-cam.com/video/hEfUSRzuWlY/w-d-xo.html vs this one a year later where he obviously transcribed Dad to the teeth. th-cam.com/video/hEfUSRzuWlY/w-d-xo.html .. just sayin. That displaced enclosure on F major in your transcription is pure Raney as an example.
Isn't that pretty normal? The amount of Parker lines that appear with Grant Green and George Benson is also substantial and very clear. It is difficult to consider it stealing given how little material they probably had access to at the time. Without knowing that much about your father then, I also suspect that in the period wtih Getz, he had the chance to be in an environment where he could get develop things and really add to the style because they could push each other, that was probably pretty unique at the time.
@@JensLarsen well yes and no. Its the amount of very Raney idiosyncratic phrases that were pulled out verbatim and the artist says to himself.. yes I'm going to run with this as mine and record it.
@@JensLarsen the point is probably moot but let me offer this in context. Dad had a particular philosophy about how much language you adopt from your idols that I think is right. So analogous to your Grant Green example (also heavily influenced by Raney btw) you take a number of your phrases and often consciously pick different ones to from different instruments so you can develop your own approach early on. If you steep yourself in one guy its sort of takes away from your art. Benson and Green are instantly recognizable
Who else should we know about and why? 🙂👍
Attila Zoller-th-cam.com/video/v3Y-jjhTH9k/w-d-xo.html
Howard roberts, toots, And of course pasquale grasso
Larry Coryell
Hank Garland. Completely overlooked. Great guitar player. Great recordings with gary burton
+ 1 for Philip Catherine and Larry Coryell. Jan Akkerman and Eef Albers from NL are giants too.
UNKNOWN..? He is my favorite. Never get enough to hear him playing. I have an archtop gibson that once belonged to him. The soul of Master René is in this guitar. (R.I.P.)
Vous etes un chanceux d avoir une guitare qui lui a appartenu ❤️❤️
Hallo Jens, I life in belgium, Rene Thomas was from Belgium and we have another great player- Philip Catherine, Great great !!!!
And tonight I am playing in Belgium 🙂
Great job Jens! Thanks so much for all your hard work. Much appreciated!
I am glad you like it Gordon! :) 🙂
So glad you speak about one of my favourite guitar player ! He's incredible in Nardis with the Eddy Louiss organ trio and in Stan Getz's Dynasty (dum dum dum just kills) !
Glad you like it 🙂
These are some really nice licks. Thanks, Jens, for turning up on to this unknown great!
You're very welcome Dave!
Seriously Jens, your videos are great. I will learn a lot from you. Thank you!
Glad to hear it! Just leave a comment if there is something you are looking for!
Nice surprise, Jens! Rene Thomas had/has quite a following in Montreal. A hip player who was ahead of his time and definitely overlooked. Last year on Christmas eve I was graced with the chance to meet Rene's daughter on a bus ride to the western most part of the island of Montreal. I was the sole passenger for the last half of the trip... and she was the bus driver. A delightful woman with some wonderful stories of her father.
Great video & topic! Thanks!!!
What a great story! Somebody should do an interview with her! 🙂
@@JensLarsen
An alto sax player who I've played with for decades has an older brother who is well known for his documentaries and journalism. I think I'll pass the idea on to him. It can't hurt! Thanks for mentioning the idea. If any interest is there I'll keep you posted. :-)
Oh comme c est touchant RENE THOMAS est originaire de ma ville Liège Belgique ou il est très apprécié et encore écouté
Je sais qu il est parti+ NEW YORK 50/60 pour retrouver BOBY JASPAR qui lui avait epouse DEARIE BLOSSOMS grande pianiste de jazz une américaine
Mais René a préféré vivre au Canada près de sa sœur aînée qui s y était établie son mari un italien avait apris les basses de la guitare 🎸 guitare 🎸 🎸 à
René lorsqu il avait 10 ans il lui a fait connaître DJANGO REINHARTS et à 13 ans il était déjà dans une formation
Il y a toujours ici un saxophoniste ROBERT JEANNE qui malgres sont âge est toujours très bon musicien et fait toujours des concerts il a joué avec René et en parle toujours avec une grande affection
Si vous croiser sa fille remettez lui nos amitiés
@@GlennMichaelThompsonoh oui ce serait Génial d avoir des anecdote de sa fille et des nouvelles de sa famille
Les fans du jazz belge seraient ravis
Absolutely overlooked. All of his work is excellent. Lou Bennett’s Enfin! , The live album with Pony Poindexter, TPL and the Bobby Jaspar Quartet. Oh and the Eddy Louis album with Kenny Clarke. Nice video!
Thanks! Great with the album suggestions! Thanks!
No problem. I own everything (with one exception) he recorded on vinyl as a leader and a sideman and it’s all fantastic.
Jens, many thanks for this excellent discussion of one of my heroes! With "Like Someone In Love," you've chosen a very representative stylistic illustration, as usual. Chord melody being my focus, Rene is, as you might guess, one of only a very few players with a primarily single-string/note soloing style that I'm heavily into -- probably because he outlines the chords so beautifully, but not necessarily in an expected way. His use of arpeggios, which you discuss, always really impresses me. A very insightful dissection of Rene's genius!
Thanks Elizabeth! Glad you kept mentioning him! I really like his playing and especially this album!
I was hoping you would, Jens.
Thank you Jens for this interesting look at Rene Thomas' style. Larry Coryell and John McLaughlin recorded one of Rene's songs, "Rene's Theme", on Larry's album Spaces in 1970, as a blistering acoustic guitar duo. Will you please consider featuring Larry Coryell in a future video?
Thank you Paul! I will try to see if I can do a video on Larry Coryell sometime 🙂
Some riffs off his debut album 'Lady Coryell' would be nice 👍
Yes, not largely known, a truly amazing player. Rene played so expressively with so much feeling and passion. One only has to listen to his guitar work on the song, You’ve Changed, from the ALBUM by EDDY LOUISS, KENNY CLARKE, RENE THOMAS. Would be nice if you could analyze and do a lesson for that piece.
Thank you! I stopped making videos like this because there was very little interest for them 🙂
in the mid-90s I discovered Thomas on the Eddy Louiss Trio recording, and dug him ever since. I also loved Toots Thielman as a guitarist
I adore bebop.The bebop is an music extraordinary music.
Thank you Silvio 🙂
Cela est bien de dire cela de ce grand génie qu'est René Thomas
merci beaucoup
Never heard of Rene until now. It sounds like he had some pretty hip lines. Thanks for the examples.
You're very welcome Don! I am glad you like it! 🙂
I didn' t know him, I liked very much these licks_ my first lesson of 2019 __ Happy New year :-)
Great! Rene Thomas is indeed a great player :)
Wie immer eine Klasse Lesson dein Output ist Wahnsinn . Your Fan.
Thank you very much Oliver 🙂
Hi Jens, great idea to help discover Rene Thomas, among others I especially like his album in trio with french organist Eddy Louiss and bebop drummer Kenny Clark. Another great guitar player is Jmmy Gourley, who lived a lot in Paris, and was strongly influenced by Jimmy Raney (himself another monument, his hard-bop lines with Stan Getz on the Concord records are unparalleled imho)
Thank you Fabrice. Yes I need to do a video on Jimmy Raney as well 🙂
RENE THOMAS never lived in Brussels but was born and lived in Liège (Luik) where he used to play with Bobby Jaspar (ts) and Jacques Pelzer (as, fl), other natives from Luik. He could n't read music, everything by head included Sonny's big band ... He loved Jimmy Rainey. He played in trio with the organist Lou Bennet or Eddie Louis (fr) and Kenny Clarke. He played with bassist Benoit Quersin from Brussels.
Lol I love it, your blues face looks just like mine!
Haha! Yeah, I am not sure I am going to pay the editor for this video 😄
I recommand the album with Eddy Louis (organ)
I love this guitarist
Thanks Stephane! I will check that out! 🙂
Nice! When I found jazz it was alot of Rene Thomas and Django Reinhardt! :D Would be awesome to see you talk about Toots Thielemans Bluesette, or Coltranes Giant Steps. Thanks for everything!
Thank you! Well start with this one: th-cam.com/video/GMQqatvImKI/w-d-xo.html 🙂
Hi Jens, thank's a lot for your great content always! I just rediscovered René Thomas after 30 years not listening to him. I realize now how great he really was (which I didn't when I was still young and foolish!)! I see in his videos that René is sweeping down and upwards. Do you know if he plays with restrokes when he alternates? That, I wasn't able to pick up. I'm an aternate picker (no reststrkes) and I'm getting into sweeping because I've realized that is close to imposible to play up tempo Parker/Bird/Bud Style Bebop lines without it. Shurely, René is someone to learn from, since he is playing real bebop with great phrasing and timing! Thank's!
Excellent lines! Hadn’t known about him so thanks.
About the lydian dominant sound in the last line - don’t know what he was thinking but I’d just be thinking of it as a natural 7th color note on the Fm7. Gives a melodic (or harmonic I guess) minor sound over the iim7, which is ok because CST wasn’t invented yet!
Thank you!
Not sure what CST really has to do with anything 🙂 But to me that is at least not really an obvious place for a leading note.
Thanks for the recommendation Jens! Rene Thomas was certainly one of the jazz guitar greats who were often overlooked. On a side note, I was wondering if you would know any Danish jazz guitarists who give lessons that are as good as yours? I'm interested in taking some lessons there as I'll be travelling there next year. Cheers.
Thank you! Maybe Peter Tinning or Jakob Fisher?
@@JensLarsen Thanks! Will definitely check them out! Jacob Fischer is great
Check Eddy Louiss Kenny Clarke René Thomas, CY Records, 1968.New ed : Eddy Louiss trio, Dreyfus Jazz, 1991
and also the quartet with Stan Getz nearly all the music played is by Eddy Louiss.
Other overlooked guitar player : Bill Harris.
I thought maybe you got the new issue of Guitarist ...there’s an article on the Gibson 175 that mentions Rene so I searched for his name and this video popped up in Google. Whoa. . . . Timely indeed!
Haha! That is extra ordinary timing
Yeah René Thomas, my jazz guitar hero :-) great video! Just a thing, thé saxophonist in this album is JR Monterose, not Bobby Jaspar ;-)
Thanks! Yes, I saw when I had uploaded the video 🙂
Great lesson Jens, I call Emily Remler and Mark Whitfield... 😎
Emily Remler is coming up 🙂👍
Super bien.
Thank you lambert thomas! 🙂
René is well regarded and not forgotten particularly amongst european guitar players: in his time was there a finer european player outside of Django?. After there was Louis Stewart Philip Catherine up to the masters of today Wolfgang Muthspiel Ulf Wakenius Lage Lund.. But he did not record a lot which kind of limit his exposure. Could Doug Raney be considered a european player since Copenhagen was his home?
I never really him heard mentioned around here, I guess that is what I base that on. I would probably consider Doug an american even if he lived most of his life in Denmark :)
Hi Jens, perhaps do a video on the guitarist Ed Bickert. Underrated strat cat.
Maybe start with this one? th-cam.com/video/0B745LU3GAU/w-d-xo.html 🙂
I never heard of Rene Thomas. I'll have to check him out. Are you familiar with Koinania? I enjoy listening to them. My favorite is More Than A Feeling.
Thanks Jume! I will have a listen? I have never heard of Koinania
Jens, can you do a video on Howard Roberts? Certainly not a hard bopper, but HR is a Dirty Guitar Player is filled with fluid, bluesy lines. One Note Samba and/or Lil' Darlin are well played.
I will have a listen I am not that familiar with him :) Dirty Guitar Player is an album? 🙂
@@JensLarsen th-cam.com/video/ib19Xttsb_o/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/ib19Xttsb_o/w-d-xo.html
Sorry wasn't sure if I shared the link.
Oh, that's unavailable in my country, I'll try to look him up on Spotify :)
@@JensLarsen If you can't access it, I'd be happy to send you a copy.
Are you planning to analyse Philip Catherine too ? :)
No, at the moment I am not doing this type of video. There was very little interest in them and they were quite a lot of work.
Mark Elf is another heavy bebop guitarist who is still around
Hey Jens, love this lesson, but (and I hate to be That Guy ) but I think you're playing something different in the last two bars at 8:11over the Eb7, and the last note in bar 14 - is that Ab or Bb? Sorry. I think I'm nitpicking!
Thanks Nick! I think somebody else mentioned it, I always have typos in my tabs, it\s becoming my thing 😄
They did? Oh sorry I didn’t notice. Just ignore me. It doesn’t matter, it’s still a great video and I’ve picked up some lovely ii v I licks here!
Don't worry about it, if something is not right just say so 🙂
A liege d où RENE THOMAS est originaire
ET TRÈS APPRECIE
Nous avons créer une MAISON DU JAZZ
Ou il y a des conférences des cours de l histoires du jazz la possibilités de revoir des documents trop rares malheureusemnt l epoque ne conservait pas toujours les jams d enfer helas ...
Ou nous nous efforçons rassemblé garder et de perpetuer la mémoires de ses grands jazzmens Liégeois partis trop tôt
Qui ont eut des amis jazzmen internstionaux
qui ont séjourner chez nous .....nous avons aussi u festival du jazz a LIEGE
BRUXELLES
ET DE SAXOPHONE a Dinant ville d adolphe SAX
He was a great player for sure, but its still hard for me to swallow how much vocab he just took from Dad nearly verbatim. As an example compare this version of Another you prior to the arrival of Jimmy Raney in Paris th-cam.com/video/hEfUSRzuWlY/w-d-xo.html vs this one a year later where he obviously transcribed Dad to the teeth. th-cam.com/video/hEfUSRzuWlY/w-d-xo.html .. just sayin. That displaced enclosure on F major in your transcription is pure Raney as an example.
Isn't that pretty normal? The amount of Parker lines that appear with Grant Green and George Benson is also substantial and very clear. It is difficult to consider it stealing given how little material they probably had access to at the time.
Without knowing that much about your father then, I also suspect that in the period wtih Getz, he had the chance to be in an environment where he could get develop things and really add to the style because they could push each other, that was probably pretty unique at the time.
@@JensLarsen well yes and no. Its the amount of very Raney idiosyncratic phrases that were pulled out verbatim and the artist says to himself.. yes I'm going to run with this as mine and record it.
@@JensLarsen the point is probably moot but let me offer this in context. Dad had a particular philosophy about how much language you adopt from your idols that I think is right. So analogous to your Grant Green example (also heavily influenced by Raney btw) you take a number of your phrases and often consciously pick different ones to from different instruments so you can develop your own approach early on. If you steep yourself in one guy its sort of takes away from your art. Benson and Green are instantly recognizable