Thollem
'Peripatetic musician and serial collaborator'
"Thollem is simply one of the great improvisers of today."
- The Detroiter
"A particularly powerful voice."
- David Keenan, The Wire
“Overflowing and irrepressible exuberance.”
- All About Jazz Italy
"Thollem has that rare gift of soulful equilibrium, which he alternates
with digital dexterities that have few equals on the current scene."
- Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
"Thollem does what few can: He combines extreme imagination with terrific post-classical chops and an ability to communicate through melody. A fresh, disciplined avant-pianist with an attractively extreme viewpoint."
- Greg Burk - LA Weekly
"In my mind, a virtuoso is someone who makes his or her instrument more than what it is, someone who blows past its constraints, finding endless worlds of possibility where others find limitations. By that definition, Thollem is most certainly a virtuoso.”
- J. Lawrence, Free Times: Columbia News and Arts
“His sound ecosystem is wet, like a rain forest dripping with life and death: shadowed in darkness but nourished by hot sunlight, teeming with crouching predators and bright birds exploding from the trees, their raucous bellows resonating and echoing through hollow canyons and caverns.”
Tom Djll, Signal To Noise, Spring 2011
“Thollem's keyboard flights unleash cascades of notes of seemingly impossible velocity and no matter where he goes tonally, it always seems right, fresh and satisfying. He should be on everyone's listening list who appreciates great piano music. As an improviser, he inhabits a world uniquely his own, rhythmically, harmonically and formally. A true original.”
- Terry Riley
"The Gowanus Session is a sound sculpture. It seems purposefully unlistenable...and I keep listening to it."
- Steve Greenlee, Jazz Times
"Thollem's solo piano set touched on virtually every genre of music. Dressed in a t-shirt, cargo slacks, and old work boots, McDonas didn’t have the disposition or attitude of a music virtuoso. He looked more like a skilled laborer. But he constructed a set of improvised music that had all the creativity and energy of Thelonious Monk and Igor Stravinsky playing at a neighborhood jam session."
I DIG JAZZ - Charles L. Latimer's Jazz Journal
- The Detroiter
"A particularly powerful voice."
- David Keenan, The Wire
“Overflowing and irrepressible exuberance.”
- All About Jazz Italy
"Thollem has that rare gift of soulful equilibrium, which he alternates
with digital dexterities that have few equals on the current scene."
- Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
"Thollem does what few can: He combines extreme imagination with terrific post-classical chops and an ability to communicate through melody. A fresh, disciplined avant-pianist with an attractively extreme viewpoint."
- Greg Burk - LA Weekly
"In my mind, a virtuoso is someone who makes his or her instrument more than what it is, someone who blows past its constraints, finding endless worlds of possibility where others find limitations. By that definition, Thollem is most certainly a virtuoso.”
- J. Lawrence, Free Times: Columbia News and Arts
“His sound ecosystem is wet, like a rain forest dripping with life and death: shadowed in darkness but nourished by hot sunlight, teeming with crouching predators and bright birds exploding from the trees, their raucous bellows resonating and echoing through hollow canyons and caverns.”
Tom Djll, Signal To Noise, Spring 2011
“Thollem's keyboard flights unleash cascades of notes of seemingly impossible velocity and no matter where he goes tonally, it always seems right, fresh and satisfying. He should be on everyone's listening list who appreciates great piano music. As an improviser, he inhabits a world uniquely his own, rhythmically, harmonically and formally. A true original.”
- Terry Riley
"The Gowanus Session is a sound sculpture. It seems purposefully unlistenable...and I keep listening to it."
- Steve Greenlee, Jazz Times
"Thollem's solo piano set touched on virtually every genre of music. Dressed in a t-shirt, cargo slacks, and old work boots, McDonas didn’t have the disposition or attitude of a music virtuoso. He looked more like a skilled laborer. But he constructed a set of improvised music that had all the creativity and energy of Thelonious Monk and Igor Stravinsky playing at a neighborhood jam session."
I DIG JAZZ - Charles L. Latimer's Jazz Journal
“I make music that I hope stimulates the mind and the body, that will shake people awake, starting with me first.”
- Thollem