Someone ought to erect a monument to Pete Thomas for services to rock music
- MUSIC Magazine Dec 1983
Quite a remarkable statement on its own, but the fact that the person honoured in this way is not a guitar hero but a college trained sax player and composer is even more remarkable. Pete has recently been paid a further compliment by Virgin Vision when they asked him to make a saxophone instruction video for worldwide release.
But then Pete Thomas doesn’t mess around. One of his first professional gigs was with Fats Domino. Pete is probably one of the first British musicians to feature with this 11 piece New Orleans band both as a soloist and as a member of the legendary horn section.
It was this connection that led to a musical partnership with Joe Jackson as co-arranger and saxophonist on records and world tours. This partnership was resumed on Joe Jackson’s film score and soundtrack album for Francis Ford Coppola’s movie Tucker
for which Pete features as a soloist.
More recently he was commissioned by Island/Polygram to produce the live recording and mixing of PJ Harvey’s Forum concert for MTV and video documentary Reeling
as well as co-producing with her the tribute to Kurt Weill: Ballad Of The Soldier’s Wife
for Sony Classical.
Not satisfied with simply helping others to create great music he has recently been involved in composition and production himself with some highly acclaimed work which has led him into the demanding world of TV films, commercials and record production. His successes in this area include composing music for Michael Caine’s feature film Blue Ice (commissioned source music), American Kick Boxer II (full score), The Late Show: Movies From Hell
- BBC2, Signals - Channel 4, Best - The Movie and a series of stylish, unique and highly musical TV ads for Tennent’s, Dry Blackthorn, Sainsbury’s, Orangina, Holsten Pils, Playstation, Pantene and many more.
His music for the Tennent’s ad was used as the soundtrack to the film Night in the Naked City
(directed by Amanda Roberts)
When he’s not touring or working as a composer he’s much in demand as a multi-horn session player and arranger. He works with producers such as Adamski, Flood, Rod Argent, Pete Wingfield, Gus Dudgeon, Robin Millar, Stuart Colman, and Marshall Jefferson on projects for artists including PJ Harvey, R.E.M., Cliff Richard, Elton John, Richard Thompson, Robert Cray, Keziah Jones and Kim Wilde.
As well as his Rock and Pop music credits Pete is well respected as a jazz musician. One time member of award winning fusion band Swift he has also featured with the Thad Jones Orchestra, Loose Tubes, Slim Gaillard, Jimmy Witherspoon, Jon Hendricks and Laverne Baker.
Pete Thomas is a consummate musician and an uninhibited performer, totally at ease in any musical idiom. He deals equally effortlessly with conducting an orchestra or programming for a modern pop session. He’s totally at one with the synthesizers, samplers, computers and midi controllers demanded by and responsible for today’s commercial music as well as breaking new ground by pioneering the saxophone-to-MIDI interface.
- International Musician
Of course this isn’t the whole story.
To learn more about Pete Thomas is easy:
