Gertrude customers have no idea of the genealogy of the performers that provide background music for your crab cake dinner.
This tall, elegant man in black flute? That's Baltimorean Gary Thomas, widely recognized as one of the best saxophonists in the world.
"Gary Thomas is my favorite room so the tenor sax player without exception," said renowned drummer Ralph Peterson, leader Fo'tet Ralph Peterson, who recently performed at the Jazz concert series at Johns Hopkins Club. "His is one of the most original voices we have in this instrument."
There's no one like him [Gary Thomas], and no mistaking his sound. If you hear two notes, you know he's the one playing. - Blake Meister, former student and Peabody faculty member
The shortest bopping along with the green guitar white man, her curls pulled to the side, is a former pupil of Thomas, saxophonist Russell Kirk. He is no slouch himself, having performed with such groups as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Temptations.
But Thomas is jazz royalty, although no one in the crowd knows.
"Sometimes when you're playing with like-minded musicians, all willing to give and take, you may feel like you can do anything," says Thomas. "You can play all you want, no matter what it is - it'll be good."
Occasionally, a diner paralyzed by the sound going to do a double take. But most, as did owner John Shields of Gertrude assume that Thomas, whose weekly "share" consists of two crab cakes and a small fee, occupies a lower rung on the musical hierarchy.
"When Gary started playing here, I do not know who he was," says Shields. "I had to disappear for a few weeks and I thought it was with the USO. Then I found out he was on tour in Japan."
The 54-year-old Thomas is one of those success stories of Baltimore, whose life reflects something about not only his person but of the city that shaped him. He grew up in the economically depressed neighborhood of Cherry Hill and has lived in Baltimore all his life. Through discipline, talent and strength of will, became an internationally renowned artist whose concerts have been reviewed regularly in Europe and the US
Thomas "is a brutal player," Peter Watrous wrote admiration for The New York Times in 1989.
"With a voice that could pulverize the rock, which displays the color alone that long and knotted with elliptical melodies that seem plucked from the depths of the imagination intermingle lines."
