Bobby Thomas

Charles Robert "Bobby" Thomas (* around 1933 , † 20th October 2013 ) was an American jazz - drummer , music teacher and composer .

Live and act

Thomas did military service from 1953 to 1955, where he played in an army band. After his discharge from the army, he studied at the Juilliard School (graduated in 1961); In November 1960 the first recordings were made with Junior Mance ( The Soulful Piano of Junior Mance ). In the following years he worked as a professional musician; so he accompanied u. a. Musicians and singers like Wes Montgomery , Carmen McRae , Cy Coleman , Charles Aznavour , Jimmy Heath , Herbie Mann , Gigi Gryce , Ray Charles , Gloria Lynne , Dionne Warwick , Gerry Mulligan , Oliver Jones , Hubert Laws and Billy Taylor . In addition to jazz, he worked in numerous Broadway shows such as Promises Promises , Company, Coco and the musical A Chorus Line , in which he also worked as musical coordinator and worked with Michael Bennett . Thomas also starred on David Frost's television show and was a composer; his compositions were u. a. Recorded by Hubert Laws, Wayne Shorter , Attila Zoller , Dave Pike , Junior Mance and David Frost. Thomas has taught at Rutgers University and the University of Massachusetts' Jazz in July program . In the field of jazz he was involved in 45 recording sessions between 1960 and 1993.