Arthur Kell is a bassist and composer whose
friendship with Thomas started in high school when the two attended Phillips Academy at Andover in Massachusetts.
Their friendship and music-making carried on into their lives as part of the Spirits Rebellious group, which Thomas formed so that he could explore, compose and play Latin music. Arthur and Thomas shared a love of world music.
"Thomas was into a lot of different things. A lot of it was developing while he was playing with Lionel Hampton, which is more of a mainstream jazz situation. But he also visited Panama and was playing with musicians down there and also in Venezuela. So he was picking up a lot of influences from around the world and was interested in many things. Definitely he had a Brazilian period that he was very focused on. In the late 80’s, Brazilian was very popular with him.
"He was on the road a lot with Hampton and was out of town a lot, but towards the end of that, he started a band called Spirit Rebellious, which had a lot of Brazilian flavored music of Hermeto Pascoal or Thomas’ own original music. It was usually a quintet. I played with that band for maybe about three years; this is like late 80's. We did a lot of gigs around, mostly around New York, Connecticut Jazz Festival, pretty much local stuff.
"He was a natural band leader, a natural showman in a way, and he was not shy at all on stage. I mean he wasn’t going to just play the melody and take a solo and be reserved about it. He was a forward player, but he was also sort of a very energized personality. He would dance a lot on stage, but mostly in body movement, not so much in formal dance. He would move a lot on stage and always did as he did in high school."
friendship with Thomas started in high school when the two attended Phillips Academy at Andover in Massachusetts.
Their friendship and music-making carried on into their lives as part of the Spirits Rebellious group, which Thomas formed so that he could explore, compose and play Latin music. Arthur and Thomas shared a love of world music.
"Thomas was into a lot of different things. A lot of it was developing while he was playing with Lionel Hampton, which is more of a mainstream jazz situation. But he also visited Panama and was playing with musicians down there and also in Venezuela. So he was picking up a lot of influences from around the world and was interested in many things. Definitely he had a Brazilian period that he was very focused on. In the late 80’s, Brazilian was very popular with him.
"He was on the road a lot with Hampton and was out of town a lot, but towards the end of that, he started a band called Spirit Rebellious, which had a lot of Brazilian flavored music of Hermeto Pascoal or Thomas’ own original music. It was usually a quintet. I played with that band for maybe about three years; this is like late 80's. We did a lot of gigs around, mostly around New York, Connecticut Jazz Festival, pretty much local stuff.
"He was a natural band leader, a natural showman in a way, and he was not shy at all on stage. I mean he wasn’t going to just play the melody and take a solo and be reserved about it. He was a forward player, but he was also sort of a very energized personality. He would dance a lot on stage, but mostly in body movement, not so much in formal dance. He would move a lot on stage and always did as he did in high school."
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