APRIL 29 was the 120th anniversary of the birth of Edward “Duke” Ellington, the greatest American orchestral innovator of the last century and commemorating his genius on solo piano at this gig is marvellous Antigua-rooted pianist, Pat Thomas.

For Thomas, Ellington is the epitome of jazz and all creative music and he himself has built a reputation for his brilliant free improvisation excursions with confrere Orphy Robinson.

Yet here he is both in the tradition yet simultaneously beyond it. He begins with Prelude to a Kiss and the hammer blows of his chords combine huge manual effort with gentle and serene melody.

The chiming piano bells of his notes in on Solitude have the same impact.

He launches into the “stride” piano style that influenced Ellington so profoundly  on Take the Coltrane and his piano sounds like a virtual orchestra all through Sophisticated Lady, with awesome runs up and down the keys.

Thomas never leaves Duke’s melodies behind — they re-emerge constantly in revolutionary clusters of sound.

I first heard Ellington’s orchestra in 1963, playing his Shakespeare suite Such Sweet Thunder in Leeds. How he would have loved Thomas’s tender thunder too on this moving and inspiring night.