Trumpeter Thomas Marriott’s latest album, Constraints And Liberations, is being called a “breakthrough album” by noted jazz writer and author Paul de Barros not just because it features all original music, “but because it’s a sort of psychological breakthrough as well.” While his previous recordings have featured a few original pieces interspersed with standards, this latest album is all original music from Thomas, and an original work by bassist Jeff Johnson. The album also features Gary Versace on piano and John Bishop on drums. In his liner notes for the album de Barros says, “Marriott has been an elbows-out bopper, a man of long chopsy lines and searing technical prowess…here, there is more space between the lines. Phrases fall off with a slippery sigh or quaver. Dynamics are tempered. Pitch is used for coloration, and the middle range gets a lot of play.” Most of the music on the album, scheduled for release in November, was written in the winter of 2008-2009 as Marriott was transitioning into his role as husband and father. It was a time of personal reflection that added depth and complexity to his writing and playing. Marriott’s previous albums have all been well received. His East-West Trumpet Summit album with fellow trumpeter and good friend, Ray Vega, released earlier this year, reached number one in the Jazz Week air play charts. It was in the top ten for 14 weeks. Two of his previous releases on Origin Records have also made it into the national top ten, 2007's Both Sides and 2009's Flexicon. As de Barros says of Constraints And Liberation, “As its title suggests, this album isn’t just about ‘freedom,’ it’s also about ‘restraint.’ It takes maturity to balance the two. Marriott appears to have found a way to balance both, in his life and in his music.”
Marriott has received six Golden Ear awards from Seattle’s Earshot Jazz for his recordings and performances. He is also the 1999 winner of the Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition. Marriott went to New York later in 1999 and gained initial acclaim through his work with Maynard Ferguson’s Big Bop Nouveau band, completing three world tours with Ferguson (who called Marriott “a truly great jazz trumpet player”), and then continued to work in New York and on the road with the likes of Rosemary Clooney, Joe Locke, The Tito Puente Orchestra, Brian Lynch, Les Brown and the Band of Renown, Kenny Kirkland, Charlie Hunter, Ritchie “Alto Madness” Cole, and many others. Now residing on the west coast once again, Marriott has become a catalyst of the jazz scene in Seattle, his home base. Marriott continues to tour and perform at clubs and festivals all over the world.
http://www.thomasmarriott.net/.
