Thousands of One

Thousands of One began in 2004 during a weekly session known as Steppers Lounge, held Wednesday nights by drummer Joel Blizzard at the Rongovian Embassy in Trumansburg, NY. The rotating musicians who made up the group rooted within reggae and soul music, that eventually gave way to a blend of freestyle gospel sessions and beat heavy conscious hiphop. Through these live, impromptu performances a devotional-type sound soon solidified around a crew consisting of Joel Blizzard on drums, Brent Eva on bass and Jhakeem Haltom on the vocals and percussion.

The saxophone, in particular, has always been considered a crucial sound within the mosaic of this mission - a wordless voice to balance the word flow of Jhakeem. Today, Mark Wienand, on tenor sax, soprano sax and flute, plays with an angelic crispness that can pierce shield and armor, straight to the heart. Tom Sayers joined the group within its first year and helped to rope in the raw living feel that the debut album "Thousands of One" conveys. His vision in arrangement and straight, no-holds-barred riffing, stickying, skanking and arpagiating combined to breath life into the inner levels of the roots drum and bass feel of Thousands of One.

The name was born during the observation of a circus event. Founding member Joel Blizzard was searching high and low for a fitting name for this band he had forged. A deadline was fast approaching: the first promoted gig outside of Steppers Lounge. The band needed a name! Attending Ithaca Festival one fine June weekend in 2005, Joel was standing on the outskirts of the Circus Eccentrithica... in his own words: "Thousands of people circled around the parading artists and animals, all engaging in supreme enjoyment of an ancient form of entertainment: the circus. However, in a single moment, the flow of this collective experience of bliss was interrupted. In the crowd directly in front of me, a child began to choke on some food. People were panicking, trying all sorts of faulty methods of saving the child's life, passing her increasingly bluish limp body from one well meaning individual to the next. I looked out at the greater audience and I saw that the panic was localized, unnoticed by many on the other side of the crowded field. Those who did notice began to react with watchful concern and open mouths, crying out, some tears, yelling "oh my God!" A woman stood pointing at the child and screamed over and over, "she's choking! she's choking!" There was a band playing old time circusy music. Half the band stopped playing as if to attempt to shift attention toward the cries of the audience nearby, but the other half continued to play, ignorant as to why its' other half had ceased. Things looked bleak, when, seemingly out of nowhere, a stranger in a purple polo shirt ran by me and into the crowd. He grabbed the child and easily scooped the food out of her mouth. Air returning to her lungs, he handed off the child to her mother and ran off without even a thank you. In total, the circus had not been interrupted, the show went on. For a moment, the many had become one, united in the experience of joy turning to near tragedy, even as most of the many had no knowledge that it happened, swallowed up, as it were, by the sheer size of the crowd. As I stood there feeling a mix of shock and relief, i kept thinking about the child as "one," and the crowd as "thousands." In my mind, they appeared to be completely connected in an oceanic quality - some water was stirred to storm, while some remained still. As I walked away from the crowd, looking out over Cayuga Lake, the words "Thousands of One" entered my mind and I immediately went to Jhakeem's house with the band name. He liked it."

As a result of the increasing love and clarity amongst peoples of the Earth. Consciousness spreads and nature begins to resonate. The collective paths to the one supreme, are not occluded by illusions of separation, though some would have us believe. When looking at the world, there seems to be many divergent lifestyles and cultures, yet these are mere appearances. The truth is that we as a people have been, and will continue to be, united simultaneously in two seemingly divergent realms; our love for the elation of creation juxtaposed with the inherent struggle and cause to heal this very wound - the idea of separateness.

There is a three pointed star that guides the movement of this group. Those points are:
1. End the race dynasty.
2. Delete consumerism.
3. Return to the root.
Once these are achieved in the individual, life can begin anew. When it expands to the collective of humanity, some might consider the fall of babylon. This is the proverbial writing on the wall, etchings in caves, print in books, lyrics in music and most of all in our daily thoughts. Whether we believe in a creator or not, the time is now, that we should find the light inside and go there.


"Deep grooves are the backbone of Thousands of One, and the players are adept at creating an atmosphere and still leaving room for each other, musically speaking. Haltom is a charismatic presence whose apparent comfort on stage as well as his vocal range, have been captivating." - Mike Levy, Buzz Entertainment - ----"Plenty of groups replicate the '70s R&B/soul sound of Marvin Gaye, but few try to match his deeply conscious message. Singing of slavery in the context of modern struggles, this Ithaca neo-soul/R&B collective does just that, while an instrumental hip-hop feel (recalling the Roots and Kweli) keeps the vibe from getting weighed down by heavy issues." -review by www.download.com 9/29/05 "Gaining notoriety for their spirited live shows in clubs and festivals throughout the northeast, Thousands of One jumps from activist/ retro soul -- think Olu Dara or Marvin Gaye - to underground hip hop with a funk/rock edge." The Stepper Sound
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"Thousands of One recorded their debut album last winter in a series of excursions into a new found sound in a room walled by draped white cotton cloth, amidst decades of stranded instruments, strewn throughout the room, under a sign that said "SOUL" in so many colors it swirled into a thought from 1960, at none other than the famous, though relatively clandestine Shut-In Studios, under the inspiring and perfectionist auspices of Elliot Martin, singer for legendary roots men John Browns Body. Elliot recorded, mixed, arranged and performed on what would come to be a ten track cross-section of the bands' current working material. He was inspired by what he heard as "a space age gospel band" and worked toward drawing this somewhat ethereal essence out of the "root and tree" sound that comes with live Thousands of One. After gathering in as much signal as possible from the players of the band, he turned on the 808, the Moog and the Space Echo and contributed his 9th dimensional equations..... ......... And thus, we are proud to present "Thousands of One" the ambitious self-titled Fall '05 release on Ithaca, NY indie I-Town Records, which, we are happy to say, has been warmly received by critics and fans alike for its classic soul meets funk electro-remix sound.