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Leon Thomas
(1937),
who moved to New York in 1958, became a legend thanks to his vocal performances on Pharoah Sanders' Karma (1969) and Jewels Of Thought (1970).
His intense and acrobatic vocabulary included scats, melismas, yodels, shrieks, growls, shouts. His own albums, particularly
Spirits Known and Unknown (october 1969), featuring
saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, flutist James Spaulding, pianist Lonnie Liston Smith, bassist Cecil McBee and drummer Roy Haynes,
and containing his signature theme The Creator Has A Masterplan and the poignant hymn Malcolm's Gone
and
Album (1970), with a revolving cast of instruments, mostly devoted to the side-long The Journey,
artfully mixed jamming that borrowed from blues, soul-jazz and free-jazz with
overtones derived from Eastern spirituality and agit-prop politics.
Thomas died in 1999.
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