Fat Thumbs Ronnie – Time To Shine

When The Unity Sextet released their debut album in January 2012 it came as a real surprise. Rarely in the last few years have a full-on live band captured the spectrum that the sextet embraced with their unique sound-scape: the open-minded grooves of the Sixties, the spiritual instrumental craftsmanship of the Seventies, the sense of globality discovered with Acid Jazz in the Eighties, the immediacy and realness of Nineties’ HipHop, all captured in a style and sound which is distinctively “Now”.

With “Time To Shine” Buddy Franco, Fats Young Jr., Cassius Farqhuar, Junior Oliver, Chuck Waldron and ‘Fat Thumbs’ Ronnie introduce the second chapter of their musical story. Fat Thumbs Ronnie, piano wizard and master of synthesizers, already worked on a collection of his own compositions during the initial Unity Sextet album sessions, but only during this summer after the release of his band’s album was he ready to record. Needless to say, the whole Unity team was on the spot, joined by guest musicians Lukas Drinkwater on guitar and Charlie Hearnshaw on saxophone.

“Time To Shine”, as Ronnie calls his debut solo collection of eleven tracks, is a love affair with cinematic, eclectic rhythms and some virtuoso keyboard work, perfectly put into context by producer Lack Of Afro.