The House of Counted Days
by the Ron Thomas Quartet:
Ron Thomas, piano; John Swana, trumptet; Tony Marino, Bass; and Joe Mullen, drums
Released in 2002 - Vectordisc HCD9691
Ron's
recordings are available from Tarnius Music and CDBaby.com and Amazon.com.
Individual tracks and the album are also available from iTunes. Search for "Ron Thomas Counted Days."
Unreleased and out-of-print recordings available by contacting Ron Thomas directly.
REVIEW
Click here to see Dan McClenaghan's high praise of this CD on the All About Jazz website.
TRACK LIST
Fancy of Fate 7:05- Code Red 4:22
- Lines Where Beauty Lingers 5:51
- Tough Nut 6:45
- Ones and Eights 6:04
- The House of Counted Days 7:35
Recorded live at the West Chester University Jazz Festival, 2002 - Lucky Cuss 5:28
- Blue Glass Country 5:34
- Here 5:12
Ron Thomas Quartet
The House of Counted Days
Recorded, Mixed and Mastered by Glenn Ferracone at the Music Centre in Exton, Pennsylvania 19341
Additional Recording: Bob Rust
Additional Mastering: Sean Townsend at Townsounds
Producer: Richard Burton
#HCD9691
All Compositions Copyright 2002, Ron Thomas Music (ASCAP)
Graphic Design: Danny N. Schweers
Acts 4:12
Metaphor and Symbol
The House of Counted Days, a fragment for Bill Karlins
Click above to see this essay.
The Dutch air is cold against my back as I read on the little single mattress on the floor of the apartment in Amsterdam. It is 1999. Not finished with Rimbaud, apparently. Reading again about Somebody Else . . . the Master of Silence . . . The Red Sea, “a blank page upon which his future will be written”. . . I am leaning against the opening under the door. A pillow, which my mother, on the other bed in the room, has thrown me, wards off the chilly blasts while the moon travels its October path, gathering size on its way towards the West Tower nearby where, somewhere within, Rembrandt is buried. Back in Thorndale, a hot blast of Dutch tea meets my face as I lean over the stove to stir a boiling pot of spinach and beans.
Walking through Philadelphia, city shapes and building fronts unfold along my eyes and head, bodiless, they do not cling. Too numerous. Pleasures not sweet enough, nor sorrows a standard of meaning can attain. Here, invent; there, remember. Wandering in place, finding, losing and giving away.
Winter’s two-part rondo, the chilly dark and the tree branch bearing beings, winter’s General, (the wind) barking orders. The sun’s warmth. The eyes I lift from the open book in my lap, meet the day’s final light washing the surface flat across the yard’s yellowing pines, and the red brick wall next to the door of the shed, watching me thinking on my couch through the patio doors . . . my position is fixed, I do not escape the fears of youth, they return in season, emboldened, no longer hiding behind the mask of feigned and fearless embezzled bravado. The tree branch bears beings laughing through the commanding winter wind, barking orders, the sun’s warmth, and the chilly dark, the light on the red brick wall next to the shed . . . the strength of the wild ox defers to the Shadow of Him by whose Word, what was not, from nothing, came to be. The watching dawn lowers its countenance averting the Lord of Heaven, mighty and dreadful, passing by.
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