Thom Bennett
“Thom has a firm grasp of the jazz tradition and a wonderful sense of interplay and spontaneity. Our musical time together is always a treat.”
“I dig the s#!t out of working with you. You have a perfect %age of F’n around.”
Thom’s strong performing career is the foundation for most of his other music-based endeavours. He has shared stages with international jazz phenom and Juno award winner Brad Turner, Humber College bass head Mike Downes, legendary guitarist Bill Coon, Toronto’s Jacksoul and singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards as well as having played and/or toured with over 100 artists since graduating from MacEwan’s esteemed Jazz Performance program in 2001. Aside from his schedule as a sideman performing with some of Edmonton and Canada’s foremost musicians, Thom leads his own group which explores his varied influences ranging from sweaty funk to straight ahead jazz to odd-time tunes to thoughtful ballads and much more. He has been fortunate enough to have toured all across Canada, the United States and Europe and has played such notable venues as Rexall Place, the Winspear Centre for Music, the Jubilee Auditorium, the Shaw Conference Centre, the Yardbird Suite, the Harbourfront and Bloor Street Festivals in Toronto, the West End Cultural Centre in Winnipeg, the Calgary Folk Festival and the Krainya Mriy festival in Kiev.
Aside from leading his own group, some notable artists that Thom has played with include singer-songwriter Ann Vriend, neo-soul artists Christina and Jeff Hendrick, jazz stalwarts Mo Lefever, Andrew Glover and Chris Andrew, ukie-world-fusion artists the Kubasonics and Vasyl Popadiuk, corporate funksters the Retrofitz, vocalists Kelly Alanna, Rhonda Whithnell and Christian Mena, choral groups Kokopelli and Form, indie-industrial group Screwtape Lewis and many, many others.
Outside of live performance, Thom has had the good fortune of recording at the following Edmonton studios as musician and/or producer: Beta Sound Studios, Homestead Recorders, 1000 Decibels, Edmontone, Blackbox Studios, The Norwood Studio, The Compound, Riverdale Recorders, Sound Extractor Studios, Sanctuary Studios and many others.
Thom has been active as a performer in multi-disciplinary settings as well. Thom has accompanied many musical theatre productions in Edmonton; most notably Fringe Theatre Adventures smash hit hold-over “Fabsolutely Abulous” and River City Shakespeare’s first-ever musical production, “Two Gentlemen of Verona” as well as productions of “Rent” and “Fiddler On The Roof” and “Oliver” among others. He also worked with modern dancer Brian Webb in his last two ground-breaking multi-media productions.
Of particular note is Thom’s recent study sojourn to New York City (summer 2008). “I’m still absorbing the lessons that my teachers gave me and I imagine I will be for quite some time! What an incredible opportunity to be able focus intensely and study my instrument in NYC with such renowned musicians as Ari Hoenig, Greg Ritchie and Owen Howard. I learned so much! Thank you Alberta Foundation for The Arts and Edmonton Arts Council for making this dream a possibility.” And (not to bore you any further!) Thom regularly accompanies dance classes in Edmonton and is proud to be an EPEK Percussion endorsee.